



mMtW.. 



COPVRIGOT DEPOSiT. 



Crimes 
Against Mexico 



BY 
WILLIAM LEMKE, B. A., LL. B. 

FARGO, N. D. 




Published by 

GREAT WEST PRINTING CO. 

Minneapolis 






Copyright, 1915, 

BY 

WILLIAM LEMKE 



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CONTENTS 

Page 

President Wilson and Mexico 5 

Letter of Ambassador Wilson 19 

Pancho Villa 24 

Zapata 32 

The President's Mexican Policy 33 

The President's Ally 37 

Bryan — Promoter 44 

Bryan's Foreign Policy 49 

Villa's Tactical Blunder 50 

The Mexican People 52 

The Citizens of El Paso Protest 58 

The Speech of Congressman Ainey 63 

American Refugees 71 

Cowardly Desertion of American Citizens 77 

A Nation's Duty 85 

We Appeal to the President 89 

The President's Indianapolis Speech 100 

Affairs in Mexico 106 

Oil Again 116 

John Lind 120 

Government by Headline 129 

Lind for Bloodshed and Subterfuge 134 

Hopkins-Pierce Letters 137 

President Huerta 144 

Diaz's Resignation 148 

Address Before Mexican Congress 150 

William Jennings Bryan 152 



PRESIDENT WILSON AND MEXICO. 

William Lemke 

When Woodrow Wilson came into office, 
the most important question confronting his 
administration was the Mexican situation, be- 
cause human life and morality were involved. 
The Indians of Mexico, instigated and financed 
by competing oil companies, and a few ambi- 
tious leaders, had gone on the war path and 
wrought ruin and desolation. Three hundred 
and seven Chinamen had been massacred in the 
streets of Torreon. President Diaz, the build- 
er of the nation, had incurred the displeasure 
of the American oil interests and had been 
compelled to resign by Madero, who was the 
servile tool of the Waters-Pierce Oil Company. 
The tragic ten days had occurred during which 
human blood flowed freer than water in the 
streets of Mexico City. And the then insane 
Madero, having failed to run the government 
by spiritualism and to cover up the raids of 
his friends and relatives upon the public treas- 
ury, had been arrested by request of a majority 
of his own Congress and cabinet officers, and 
later met the same fate that he himself had 
meted out to at least ten thousand non-com- 



6 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 

batants, including women and children. Amer- 
ican citizens and other foreigners had been and 
were subjected to every torture known in me- 
dieval times. 

This was the situation when Wilson became 
President. It did not take him by surprise. He 
came into office after Mexico had been upset 
for over two years. He had the advantage of 
the information that had been gathered, and 
of all the experience of the previous adminis- 
tration. How has he met the problem? For 
more than six months he insulted our intelli- 
gence by his silence — and when he was at last 
compelled to break his silence by the foreign 
powers, he calmly requested the American citi- 
zens in Mexico to run. Thus he informed the 
bandits of that country that our government 
had forsaken its citizens in their hour of need, 
and that it would give them no protection — 
hundreds sought safety by proclaiming them- 
selves citizens of other countries. To the honor 
of all the other nations may it be said that none 
of them followed this dishonorable and cow- 
ardly example. 

The President's policy toward Mexico has 
not only been wrong, but criminally wrong, in 
the sense that it haa been responsible for the 
destruction of thousands of lives and the out- 
raging of thousands of women. When Wilson 



CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 7 

became President he found a government in 
Mexico which was doing its utmost to restore 
order and protect the lives and property of all, 
and opposed to it he found the forces of an- 
archy and crime. This government had been 
declared the constitutional government of 
Mexico by its own Congress and Supreme 
Court. All of the great nations, among them 
Great Britain, Germany, France, Austria, Bel- 
gium, Denmark, Spain, Holland, Italy, Portu- 
gal, Russia, China and Japan, had recognized 
this government. President Wilson was ad- 
vised by our Ambassador and Consuls to ex- 
tend recognition, and could have had similar 
advice from all of the foreign Ministers and 
Consuls in Mexico. He was assured that if rec- 
ognition were given, the bloodshed in that un- 
happy country would speedily come to an end. 
The danger of withholding recognition was 
made plain to him — all the fearful conse- 
quences that followed were pointed out to him. 
One can hardly believe it possible that an 
honest man could have blundered here, and yet, 
in place of giving recognition, he defied the 
laws of nations and actually took the side of 
anarchy and crime against the very govern- 
ment that was endeavoring to uphold law and 
order. 



8 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 

"Huerta must go." These were the words 
of President Wilson. No more cruel or inhu- 
man words ever fell from mortal lips — the head 
of a nation must go, and fifteen million people 
be turned over to anarchy, murder and shame. 
This fearful decree was imposed upon the in- 
habitants of Mexico for the simple reason that 
their country was rich in oil — crude petroleum, 
and because the head of that nation had refused 
an offer from the American oil kings of a loan 
of two hundred million dollars and the assur- 
ance of recognition from the Wilson adminis- 
tration in return for certain oil concessions. 
Huerta had the courage to ask, "What author- 
ity have you to represent the United States of 
America in Mexico?" "Huerta must go." This 
perhaps was the oil kings' reply through Presi- 
dent Wilson. 

For over two years the President has sup- 
pressed the truth in regard to the real situa- 
tion. He has even refused to submit to the 
United States Senate the information which 
the State Department has in regard to the 
crimes that have been committed by Villa and 
other murderous criminals, although the Sen- 
ate made a just and formal demand for this in- 
formation. Our Constitution gives to Congress 
alone the right to declare war, and yet the 
President refused to submit to them the facts 



CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 9 

upon which they could base an intelligent de- 
cision. When he said, "It was not compatible 
with public interest," he stood convicted of a 
subterfuge. He stood convicted of violating 
the Constitution of the United States, which 
he took solemn oath to uphold. "Not compati- 
ble with public interest" — no, not compatible 
with President Wilson's political interests. He 
did not wish the American people to see his 
friend and ally. Villa, in his true colors, with 
the blood of Benton, Bach and hundreds of 
others dripping from his fingers. He did not 
wish the American people to see his friend and 
ally with millions of dollars' worth of stolen 
cattle and stolen cotton, brought into and dis- 
posed of in this country without a protest from 
him, although he had full knowledge that these 
cattle and this cotton had been stolen. 

And all this by the man who has been 
preaching to us that the best way to settle all 
public questions was to throw open the blinds 
and let in the light of publicity; and who 
threatened to point out, and justly so, with the 
finger of publicity, any millionaire who would 
even dare to suggest a panic, and thus annihi- 
late him forever with public opinion. 

The President discredited Ambassador Wil- 
son for doing his duty and telling the truth, the 
same as he reprimanded United States District 



10 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 

Attorney McNab for telling the truth in the 
California White Slave cases. He even caused 
the House Committee on Foreign Relations to 
withdraw its invitation to Ambassador Wilson 
to appear before it and give them information 
— he did not wish them to know the truth. Had 
he not, by innuendoes, slurs and half truths, led 
the public to believe that Huerta murdered 
Madero, when he was advised, and must have 
known, that it was not true? He did not care 
for the facts, but insisted upon having them 
made so as to suit his own political purpose. 
When he reprimanded Ambassador Wilson for 
telling the truth, he degraded and closed the 
lips of every American diplomat. They re- 
alized that what the President wanted was me- 
dieval diplomacy — diplomatic lies, and as 
many could not afford to lose their positions, 
they remained silent. 

The President surrounded himself with a 
group of confidential agents — diplomatic 
sleuths, that would have brought shame and 
dishonor to any nation. It was the first time 
in the history of our national existence that 
we sent scores of spies to pry into the affairs of 
a friendly nation, and had the audacity, or ig- 
norance, to openly and publicly designate them 
as such. Rumor has it that two American Con- 
suls, finding that Villa was willing to part with 



CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 11 

some of his stolen goods, gave the President 
the information he wished, and thereupon be- 
came the confidential agents of this govern- 
ment, and for all practical purposes members 
of Villa's staff, a sort of international body- 
guard for this monster. 

The President and his Secretary of State not 
only refused to receive Major Gillette, the Rev. 
Butler and hundreds of other Americans who 
had lived in Mexico and knew conditions there, 
but actually insulted them. The shameful man- 
ner in which Americans, who, bleeding and in 
agony, appealed for help, have been treated be- 
cause they did not use language pleasing to 
the artistic ear of William Jennings Bryan, is a 
matter of Congressional Record. 

When Villa and his followers were hard 
pressed and had to take to the mountains, the 
President came to their assistance by dispatch- 
ing another coniidential agent, John Lind, "A 
deserving Democrat looking for a job," to 
Mexico with those impossible proposals that 
threw the nations of the world into convul- 
sions of laughter. The President demanded 
that he be permitted to name the President of 
a sovereign nation — and that against the will 
of its own people. And when the world stood 
amazed at the audacity of this demand, he 
quietly assured the American people that he 



12 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 

had the approval of the European nations. 
This was not true. All that the European pow- 
ers did in the matter was to ask the Mexican 
government to give Mr. Lind an audience. 
They never dreamed that he was on such a 
silly mission. They smiled audibly when they 
learned the nature of these proposals, and the 
British Minister, Sir Lionel Carden, made 
some unkind remarks, which did not meet with 
the President's approval. It was then that the 
President began to talk about not sacrificing 
morality for expediency — forgetting that civi- 
lization would answer back that to assist mur- 
der, rape and robbery was neither morality 
nor expediency. It is hard to believe that these 
proposals were made in good faith. They were 
made to harass and cripple the Mexican gov- 
ernment at the very moment that its labors 
were about to be crowned with success. 

The American flag had been insulted at 
Tampico — no, the American flag had not been 
insulted. The President had learned from his 
confidential agent, Mr. Lind, that large ship- 
ments of arms and ammunition were about to 
land for the Mexican Government. He feared 
for the safety of Villa and his followers, and 
gave to Admiral Fletcher the order: "Seize 
the Custom House at Vera Cruz." Twenty- 
two American marines sacrificed their lives — 



CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 13 

two hundred and fifty Mexicans are no more, 
as a result of this inglorious war. The Pres- 
ident says this was not a war. No, it was in- 
ternational and political manslaughter. Why 
did he not submit the flag incident to arbitra- 
tion, as General Huerta suggested? It would 
have been the proper thing for him to do, since 
he and his Secretary of State have been preach- 
ing arbitration for years. There is but one an- 
swer and that is, that he knew that no inter- 
national board of arbitration would sustain his 
contention. After he got Huerta and destroyed 
the Mexican Government, the American sol- 
diers and marines were withdrawn from Vera 
Cruz just as ingloriously as they were landed 
there; and the Mexicans, who had been per- 
suaded by the United States Army and Navy 
officials to assist the Americans in the govern- 
ment of their city, were abandoned and left to 
the mercy of the various Rebel factions. Suffice 
it to say that the intellect of Mexico has been 
murdered and womanhood debauched. 

To the reader of the Congressional Record, 
it would seem that the President's relations 
with Villa have been so intimate that it was 
impossible for him to protect the just interests 
of our Government and its citizens. By rais- 
ing the embargo on arms, he permitted the 
Rebels to import thousands of firearms and 



14 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 

millions of rounds of ammunition with which 
they murdered American citizens and peaceful 
Mexicans. This he did, knowing that in all hu- 
man probability these same arms and ammuni- 
tion would be used to shoot down our own 
soldiers, when we are ultimately compelled to 
put a stop to the crimes against civilization 
committed by these brigands, and he did this 
against the advice of the commanders of our 
Army and Navy, against the advice of the men 
who will finally have to stand on the firing 
line, and receive in their bodies the impact of 
this same ammunition, fired by these same 
rifles, in the hands of the erstwhile allies and 
friends of our President. 

While the President has been very sensitive 
about the supposed insult to the flag, he has 
not shown quite so much sensitiveness about 
the American lives and property in Mexico, of 
which after all the flag is but the symbol. He 
has talked rather freely about the sacredness 
and glory of the American flag, but has for- 
gotten that when the flag of any nation fails 
to protect the lives and property of its citizens, 
it becomes a mere rag, not even worthy of the 
respect of the most degraded. The Demo- 
cratic platform of 1912 contains this plank: 
"The constitutional rights of American citi- 
zens should protect them on our borders and 



CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 15 

go with them throughout the world, and every 
American citizen residing or having property 
in any foreign country is entitled to and must 
be given ^the full protection of the United 
States Government, both for himself and his 
property." It was upon this plank that thou- 
sands of Americans voted for Woodrow Wil- 
son. Has he kept the faith? No, he has not 
— he has even assisted the enemies of all gov- 
d^rnment, who ihave committed utispeakable 
outrages upon American citizens, and has even 
permitted them to bring into this country and 
sell the very property that they had stolen from 
American citizens. If he could talk with the 
five hundred Americans that have been mur- 
dered by Villa and other outlaws — if he would 
talk to the twenty thousand Americans that 
have been deprived of their homes and all their 
property by the very men whom he armed, 
then he would perhaps realize why it is that 
under his administration the American flag is 
not revered. He would perhaps realize why 
so many Americans at home and abroad con- 
sider his foreign policy weak and dishonorable. 
It is true that President Wilson threatened 
the Mexican factions whenever they endan- 
gered any oil wells, and he also became very 
active when the International Harvester Com- 
pany's supply of sisal for the manufacture of 



16 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 

binder twine was in danger. This was proper, 
but why were the lives and property of the 
thirty thousand American citizens, who did 
not possess great wealth, entirely ignored? Is 
our government a plutocracy, and is it neces- 
sary to be a millionaire to get protection under 
the Wilson administration? 

Over one hundred American citizens and 
soldiers have been killed or injured on Amer- 
ican soil by the followers of Villa and other 
outlaws firing across the international boun- 
dary line. One cannot help but share their hu- 
miliation — compelled as they were to stand 
there to be shot down, and prohibited from re- 
turning the fire. Governor Colquitt of Texas, 
and Governor Hunt of Arizona, finally relieved 
them from this miserable and contemptible po- 
sition by threatening to send the State Rangers 
and State Militia to protect them, and thus 
through shame, compelled the President to 
send General Scott, against his will, to meet 
the murderer Villa on the international bridge 
at El Paso, and beg him to remove his cut- 
throats from the boundary. This procedure of 
compelling an honorable general of the United 
States Army to hang around the international 
bridge for three days and wait on the mur- 
derer. Villa, has disgusted many of the ofiicers 
of our army. 



CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 17 

It ill becomes President Wilson to talk of 
the glory and sacredness of our flag. Others 
have made it great — his administration has 
disgraced it in the eyes of the world, and the 
only comfort that we can get out of it, is in 
the anticipation that succeeding administra- 
tions will again place it on high, and that the 
dark blot put upon it by this administration 
will be forgotten in the achievements of future 
glory. 

If the public were given the facts, the mov- 
ing hand behind the scenes in the Mexican 
revolutions would be found to be an American 
oil company. If the public were given the 
facts, it would find that the same oil company 
has produced; a false and fraudulent public 
opinion by subsidizing a few of the larger and 
more influential newspapers, which the smaller 
newspapers unconsciously follow. If the pub- 
lic were given the facts, the President, who by 
force of arms, overthrew the Mexican Govern- 
ment, and who is responsible for the present- 
revolting conditions in Mexico, would hav^ 
been shamed out of his position of aiding such 
monsters as Villa and Zapata, by the moral and 
just indignation of an enlightened public 
opinion. 

Wilson got Huerta, but was it right? Can 
Woodrow Wilson get any glory or self-satis- 



18 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 

faction out of the misery and suffering, death* 
and destruction that he has caused to millions 
in Mexico ? When he thinks of the blood that 
has been spilled, of the widows and orphans, 
of outraged womanhood, of the starving mil- 
lions, and when he realizes the part he has 
played in this horrible tragedy, does he still 
rejoice as during the days of "watchful wait- 
ing," when he, vulture-like, watched the last 
feeble struggles of the Mexican Government, 
on behalf of civilization; or has his mad mania 
of hatred of the man, Huerta, abated in the 
full realization of the awful fearfulness into 
which he plunged the people of Mexico? 



LETTER OF AMBASSADOR WILSON. 

In Congressional Record. 

Indianapolis, Ind., May 11, 1914. 
Hon. William Alden Smith, 
Washington, D. C. 

My Dear Senator : I have just been shown 
a copy of the Congressional Record of April 
21, which contains a copy of the recommenda- 
tions made by me to the President and after- 
wards read to the Committee on Foreign Rela- 
tions of the Senate, with reference to the rec- 
ognition of the present provisional government 
of Mexico. I detect no error in the wording 
of the recommendations. They were care- 
fully considered at the time they were offered, 
and I think have been fully justified by events 
which have since occurred. 

In the comments, however, which you had 
occasion to make at the time of submitting the 
recommendations you fell into the very nat- 
ural error of assigning them chronologically 
to the month of March, 1913. I think it of 
some importance that it should be known that 
these recommendations were made to the 
President and afterwards read to the Senate 



20 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 

Committee on Foreign Relations in the month 
of August, 1913, while I was in Washington 
under instructions from the Secretary of State 
and prior to the acceptance of my resignation. 

Inasmuch as some overzealous supporters of 
the President's policies toward Mexico have 
with unfortunate haste commented upon the 
recommendations of August as being the sole 
and only solution of the difficult situation pro- 
posed by me, I feel that I am justified in say- 
ing that the records of the Department of State 
show conclusively that in the early months of 
the present administration — either April or 
May, I think — I recommended the uncondi- 
tional recognition of the Huerta administra- 
tion. If this is denied, I shall know how to 
demonstrate the truth. I made the same rec- 
ommendations with reference to recognition to 
the Wilson administration that I had made to 
the Taft administration in February, and I 
may say here, without fear of contradiction, 
that the Taft administration recognized the 
legality o'f the installation of the Huerta gov- 
ernment and withheld formal recognition only 
because of the delay of the new Mexican ad- 
ministration in adjusting certain long pending 
differences. 

When I made the recommendations for un- 
conditional recognition of the Huerta admin- 



CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 21 

istration in the early days of the present ad- 
ministration, my position was justified by 
every consideration of interest and humanity; 
the revolution against Madero had been gen- 
erally accepted throughout the country. For- 
eign governments were rapidly according 
recognition, and the present revolutionary 
movement was a cloud no larger than a man's 
hand on the horizon. Prompt action by our 
government, if taken then, would, in my judg- 
ment, have averted all the horrors, sacrifices, 
odiums, and dangers which followed. Four 
months later, when I made the recommenda- 
tions which you have placed upon the records 
of the Senate, the situation had entirely 
changed. Our policy toward this unfortunate 
country had become the subject of severe criti- 
cism in European chancelleries, had excited 
profound distrust in Latin America, had alien- 
ated the friendly sentiments of the Mexican 
government, and inspired the hopes and ral- 
lied the spirits of those in rebellion against the 
government. 

I was, therefore, obliged to consider three 
things in making the recommendations, which 
you have placed upon the Senate records, viz.: 

First : The best method of restoring our na- 
tional prestige. 



22 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 

Second: The best method of affording pro- 
tection to our nationals in Northern Mexico, 
without being forced to go to war. 

Third : The best method of meeting what I 
understood to be the views and of conforming 
to the announced policies of the present ad- 
ministration. 

To accomplish the restoration of our na- 
tional prestige I recommended the severe con- 
ditions to be imposed before according recog- 
nition; to protect our nationals in Northern 
Mexico I recommended an agreement with the 
Mexican government to the effect that in case 
of necessity we should be permitted to go as 
far south as the twenty-sixth parallel with its 
consent — below the twenty-sixth parallel there 
was no semblance of a revolution; to meet the 
views and to conform to the policies of the 
present administration, I made the recommen- 
dation for demanding guarantees for a consti- 
tutional election. At the time I made this 
recommendation, I knew that a constitutional 
election could not be held in Mexico, but I also 
believed it would be impossible to carry this 
fact home to the minds of those in charge of 
the foreign affairs of this nation. I hoped that 
some satisfactory process might be gone 
through which would result in the selection of 
a good man for President, who, without hav- 



CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 23 

ing been elected by constitutional methods, 
might nevertheless govern in accordance w^ith 
democratic principles and endeavor to lay 
foundations upon which an intelligent and in- 
structed suffrage might be built up. 

The recommendations v^hich I made in the 
first instance I still believe should have been 
acted upon, and those which I had occasion to 
offer later, and which are the subject of this 
letter, I am sure every disinterested person 
must believe were conceived in a spirit of devo- 
tion to the interests of this government. 
Very sincerely yours, 

HENRY LANE WILSON. 



PANCHO VILLA. 

William Lemke 

"Villa is known and has been known for 
years; known to every American in northern 
Mexico and on the border; known as an ordi- 
nary, common, ignorant, brutal murderer for 
hire." He was born about forty-eight years 
ago in the State of Durango. All but thirteen 
of those forty-eight years have been spent in 
the actual commission of crime — to murder, 
torture and mutilate, that is his profession. 
He has personally murdered more men and 
has tortured and mutilated more, than any 
other character in all history. At the age of 
fourteen he was imprisoned for cattle stealing; 
at fifteen he served a term for homicide. Later 
he organized a band of robbers with headquar- 
ters in the mountainous regions of Durango, 
and became the terror of all that district. 

From this time on his life is a repetition of 
crime. I shall mention just a few of his crimes 
in order to give the reader an idea of the char- 
acter of the "Beast'' that President Wilson and 
Secretary Bryan have assisted in overthrow- 
ing the Mexican government, and whom they 
have attempted to fasten upon the fifteen mil- 
lion people in Mexico. 



CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 25 

"When the city of Juarez was taken by Ma- 
dero in May, 1911, Villa, while seated on a 
table, drew his revolver and shot and killed a 
defenseless old man without provocation. 
During the same month, at the town of Rosa- 
lia, he shot a Spaniard over the head of his 
wife, who was trying to defend him, and then 
kicked her in the face as she lay on the dead 
body of her husband/' 

A little later Villa at the head of a band of 
desperados, dragged three hundred and seven 
defenseless Chinese — men, women and chil- 
dren — through the streets of Torreon. "Lari- 
ats were tied to the ankles of some and then 
were tied to the horns of saddles with the 
horses headed in opposite directions. Then 
the horses were whipped into a gallop and the 
Chinamen torn limb from limb." Children 
were thrown into the air and caught on knives 
as they came down. This massacre has been 
described as the most horrible that has ever 
taken place on this continent. 

"When 'the Orosco revolution broke out. 
Villa looted the city of Parral. He was arrest- 
ed, but managed to escape. A year or so 
later he captured Casas Grandes, which was 
defended by one hundred and twenty-five 
home guards. When they surrendered one 
hundred and fifteen were set up against a wall 



26 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 

and shot by Villa. Ninety women, including 
seventeen little girls, were outraged on this 
occasion." 

"Villa next tookvthe town of San Andres. 
Here he murdered more than two hundred 
men, women and children. In order to econo- 
mize cartridges, he placed one behind the other 
up to five at a time. Very few were killed out- 
right. The bodies of the dead and wounded 
were then soaked in petroleum and thrown 
into bonfires. After this he slipped into Tor- 
reon and murdered over two hundred Span- 
iards, literally beating some to death." 

"Domingo Flores, a resident of El Paso, 
went across the river to Juarez on the 22nd of 
February,, 1914, to have a settlement with 
Villa. He had been smuggling arms for Villa 
in partnership with another man. The part- 
ner had left, taking with him three thousand 
five hundred out of the ten thousand dollars 
which had been entrusted to them with which 
to buy arms and ammunition. Flores went 
over to account for six thousand five hundred 
dollars, and to explain to Villa that the part- 
ner had left, taking with him three thousand 
five ; hundred. Villa put him in jail. The 
mother of Flores went over and attempted to 
secure the liberty of her son. She was told by 
Villa that if she would raise three thousand 



CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 27 

five hundred dollars he would release him. 
The old lady returned to her home in El Paso, 
made every effort and finally succeeded in 
selling her little house and lot — everything in 
the world that she had — and raised three thou- 
sand three hundred dollars, lacking only two 
hundred of the correct amount. She went to 
Villa, who accepted the money, but refused to 
turn the boy loose until she had paid the other 
two hundred. His sister finally managed to 
secure the two hundred dollars and took it to 
Villa, who accepted the money and sent the 
girl into the jail to see her brother released. 
The brother was shot in her presence. She 
was outraged, and then told by Villa person- 
ally to get back into the United States and 
not to come to Mexico again." 

"A few weeks later, Villa entered the city 
of Chihuahua, rounded up the Spaniards, con- 
fiscated every dollar of their property, 
amounting to five million dollars, and then put 
them on a special train, went down to the 
train, counted them, and told them to get out 
of the country and never to return, or he would 
kill every one. When he found that on the 
train there were wives and children of some of 
the Spaniards, who had been born in Mexico, 
he took them off and would not let them go 



28 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 

with their husbands and fathers to the Amer- 
ican side where they might seek safety and 
have some means of support." 

William Benton, a British subject, owned a 
ranch in Mexico. Villa had looted it several 
times. When Villa captured Juarez, Mr. Ben- 
ton went to him and tried to get a settlement. 
He was stabbed to death — Villa personally 
murdered him without provocation. 

On account of the Monroe Doctrine, the 
English government requested our govern- 
ment to make an investigation. Villa an- 
swered that he had never seen Benton. Secre- 
tary Bryan accepted this statement as true. 
The English government produced evidence 
that Benton had been seen to enter Villa's 
house. Villa then admitted that he killed 
Benton, but claimed that Benton had first 
drawn a revolver on him, and that he had killed 
him in self-defense. This explanation was 
satisfactory to Secretary Bryan. Self-preser- 
vation is the first law of nature. 

But the English government was persistent 
and produced evidence showing that Benton 
was unarmed. Villa answered that while he 
had seen no revolver, yet Benton put his hand 
on his hip pocket as though reaching for one, 
and that he. Villa, overpowered him, had him 
arrested and court-martialed, and that he was 



CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 29 

found guilty and executed by a firing 
squad. He stated further that Benton was 
allowed to die an honorable death, and that 
he had been buried with religious ceremony in 
the little churchyard at Juarez. This explana- 
tion was both satisfactory and pleasing to Sec- 
retary Bryan — the whole thing had been done 
so religiously. 

Still the English government was not satis- 
fied. It produced evidence showing that Ben- 
ton was not shot by a firing squad, but was 
murdered by Villa personally. They request- 
ed that the body of Benton be produced for 
examination, and then given to Mrs. Benton 
for burial. Villa objected, claiming that it was 
sacrilegious to disturb the dead. Secretary 
Bryan acquiesced, but the obdurate English 
government intimated that Villa, the murderer 
of hundreds, could have no religious scruples, 
and insisted that the body be produced. Then 
President Wilson and Secretary Bryan tried 
"moral suasion" on Villa, and Villa demurely 
replied that Benton had not been buried in 
Juarez at all, but had been shipped for burial 
to Chihuahua. He then hurriedly departed 
for Chihuahua. This persistence of the Eng- 
lish government embarrassed him. 

But still the English government persisted, 
and our government tried some more "moral 



30 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 

suasion." Villa finally agreed that he would 
permit an international commission to exam- 
ine the body, but before he agreed to this he 
had made arrangements with Carranza to have 
him step in at the opportune moment and up- 
set the whole proceeding by declaring that if 
England wished to have any dealings with the 
constitutionalista, she must first recognize 
them and deal with them directly, thus politely 
informing our igovernment that this whole 
Benton affair was none of its business. 

Carranza then appointed a commission of 
his own. This commission, in accordance with 
instructions previously given it, reported that 
Benton was killed somewhere between Juarez 
and Chihuahua by a man named Ferro. This 
man was already under death sentence for hav- 
ing displeased Villa. He was executed — dead 
men tell no tales. "Moral suasion" and the 
amateurish diplomacy of our administration 
was outgeneraled and outwitted by the ignor- 
ant, brutal murderer, Villa. 

At about the same time that Villa murdered 
Benton, he also murdered a citizen of the 
United States by the name of Bach. While 
the American press made a great deal, and 
justly so, of the murder of Benton, very little 
was said about Bach. Why should there be — 
he was just an American citizen, and like hun- 



CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 31 

dreds of his countrymen, who sleep in lonely- 
graves in Mexico, he was passed over in silence. 

"Villa now has in his hands Luis Terrazas, 
son of old General Terrazas, who is one of the 
few remaining men that made Mexico. Gen- 
eral Terrazas gained the first victory over the 
French, drove them out of the city of Chihua- 
hua and put Juarez into power. His son is an 
educated man — a man whose society one can- 
not help but enjoy. Villa demanded of him 
every dollar he had, and received it. He tor- 
tured him and made him disclose the hiding 
place of five hundred and ninety thousand dol- 
lars. He was promised his freedom, but was 
not released. Villa now demands of old Gen- 
eral Terrazas two hundred and fifty thousand 
dollars, not for the surrender of his son, but 
simply as an agreed price for his life at the 
present moment." 

I have endeavored to select a few of the 
hundreds of crimes committed by Villa in 
such a way as to give the reader an idea of 
the extent and character of these crimes. I 
have taken my facts from personal observa- 
tion and from the Congressional Record, and 
more especially from the speeches of Senator 
Fall of New Mexico, and I have not hesitated 
to use the Senator's own words wherever 
consistent with the rest of the article. 



32 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 

ZAPATA. 

Like some huge crawling, stinging thing 

He sallies from his lair, 
And piteous cries and dying sighs 

Disturb the desert air. 
With this brute chief the shrift is brief 

And blood is everywhere. 

He does not fight as patriots fight 

Or dream as patriots dream; 
His powerful band could aid his land, 

But that is not his scheme. 
His eyes grow bright, his heart grows light 

When he hears the tortured scream. 

His soldiers tremble and salute 

To do his last decree. 
For these wild brutes have met no brute 

More merciless than he. 
Pitting his might 'gainst law and right, 

Laughing at every plea. 

Zapata ! All his hellish plans 

No mind but his may know; 
If his brute strength shall serve at length 

To banish every foe. 
Pity the weak that his lust will seek — 

And God help Mexico! 
William F. Kirk in New York "American." 



THE PRESIDENT'S MEXICAN POLICY. 

By Senator Wm. E. Borah. 

The President now says that we are to let 
Mexico alone. How unfortunate that that 
was not the policy from the beginning. I 
think if he had said in the beginning that we 
were to let Mexico alone, he would have been 
in an almost impregnable position. All that 
needed to have been added to that to make a 
perfect policy would have been that Mexico 
should respect the rights of American citizens 
and of foreigners living in that country. Let 
them settle their own form of government, let 
them elect whom they would, let them have a 
despotism or a republic, according as they 
lived up to the one or the other, and that we 
would recognize whatever form of government 
they established, always adding the proposi- 
tion that whether it was one form of govern- 
ment or another, the rights and the lives of 
American citizens should be protected there- 
under. 

But we did go to Mexico, Mr. President. 
What did we go for? What were we at Vera 
Cruz about ? What were the results of the ex- 



34 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 

pedition? The first result was that we killed 
two hundred Mexicans; the second result was 
that we lost twenty-two of our own men. We 
were at war with Mexico. Had we killed one 
English subject or one German subject or one 
subject of France, there would have been no 
doubt about our being at war with that coun- 
try. The only reason it did not take on all "the 
pomp and circumstance of glorious war" was 
the fact that the country with which we were 
at war was unable to respond against the pow- 
erful enemy who had entered its borders. Not 
only did we intervene when we declared 
against Huerta, but we were at war when 
blood was shed upon the soil of Vera Cruz. 
That was the first result. 

The second result of our going there was 
the destruction of the only semblance of gov- 
ernment which they had in Mexico. 

The third thing which we did in connection 
with it is one which may have far-reaching 
consequences in the future, and that is, we 
notified foreign nations that they must keep 
hands off of Mexico, that they must not build 
up or give sustenance and support to Huerta, 
or to any form of government. The result of 
it was that we assumed the responsibility mor- 
ally, if not legally, for the injuries which flowed 



CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 35 

from that time on to those foreign powers or 
to their nationals by reason of the acts or of the 
conduct of the warring factions of Mexico. 

Then we assumed further, Mr. President, at 
that time to reform the land laws of Mexico. 
So we did not let Mexico alone. 

What is the situation in Mexico today? Mr. 
President, the situation in Mexico today is in- 
describable. We have no conception of it. I 
doubt if it would be possible to conceive a 
proper measurement of the condition of af- 
fairs in Mexico unless we were there, but we 
know that it is as bad as it could possibly be in 
a civilized or semi-civilized community. We 
know that over two hundred and fifty of our 
own citizens have from time to time been mur- 
dered; we know that countless others have 
been injured in different ways and have no 
apparent remedy or redress. 

Now, sir, when a condition of affairs exists 
in Mexico such as the civilized world has sel- 
dom witnessed and Republicans rise to ex- 
press their views as to what shall be done, the 
answer which we get from the public rostrum 
of the country by the Chief Magistrate of the 
Nation is practically, in the language of Ba- 
rere, that the revolution in Mexico shall be 
permitted to float in upon seas of blood and 



36 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 

that the man who questions the course of revo- 
lution in Mexico is to be suspected before the 
American people! 

Mr. President, speaking for myself, I am de- 
sirous of peace with Mexico; I want no war; 
and I know we shall never take any part of 
the territory of that Republic; but above and 
beyond that, and more important to my mind, 
is the fact that we should at least protect our 
own citizenship, securing our women against 
ravishment and our men from murder at the 
hands of those ferocious men who prey upon 
our nationals wherever they find them in their 
territory. There are some things which are 
dearer to me than peace. I do know this, Mr. 
President, that no nation ever retains respect 
among the other nations of the earth, or long 
maintains the consideration of other powers, 
that does not protect its citizens and the honor 
of its women and prevent them from being 
ravished and -murdered even upon its very 
doorsteps. 



THE PRESIDENT'S ALLY. 

Condensed Speech of Senator Fall. 

Villa issues his own currency, and if you do 
not take it you are shot. You have to take it 
at the price he puts on it. You are not per- 
mitted to pay your laborers with American or 
Mexican gold. You must take your gold to 
Villa and you must buy from him certificates 
at a given price — thirty-five cents on the dol- 
lar. They are quoted on the market today at 
nine and a half cents, but you are not permitted 
to buy them from a broker. You are not al- 
lowed to start a new enterprise on the money 
of Mr. Villa unless you buy it from him. The 
result is that when it is once out in circulation, 
there is no chance for a new enterprise to start 
up, except by getting some more of it in cir- 
culation from Villa himself. 

Pancho Villa owns a packing house in 
Juarez. He seized it and took charge of it. 
Then issued a decree prohibiting the exporta- 
tion of cattle from Chihuahua. He has had 
some trouble because the stolen cattle were 
seized on this side and identified by their 
brands. So he took possession of this packing 



38 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 

house with an American representative of one 
of the great packing establishments of this 
country in partnership with him, and there 
they are killing stolen cattle, known to every 
man in the State of Chihuahua to be stolen, 
taken from Americans and Mexicans alike. 
They are killed and shipped into this country. 
The hides are packed so that there is no way 
of identifying them, and our government will 
not revise its laws so as to compel them to 
state what certain branded hides are in the 
bales of five hundred pounds, which are shipped 
over here, although the collector of the port of 
El Paso has made this request. 

These things are going on all the time. You 
have heard of the millions of dollars' worth of 
cotton belonging to the Spanish and the 
French citizens that were seized at Torreon 
by Villa. It is an open scandal in Mexico that 
certain parties claiming to represent this gov- 
ernment are said to have received two hun- 
dred thousand dollars out of the sale of this 
cotton. In the eyes of the people of Spain and 
France, and other countries, we are acting as 
an international fence in protecting these ban- 
dits and robbers who are stealing property in 
Mexico and shipping it over here with im- 
punity, and we are enforcing our laws so as 
to protect them, instead of assisting the own- 



CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 39 

ers so that they may make demands for repay- 
ment if there ever is a government established 
in Mexico. 

If the President would enquire of the repre- 
sentative of the State Department, who is al- 
ways with Villa in more ways than one, he 
would know that there never has been in the 
history of Mexico such bold-faced thievery and 
grafting as has been carried on by the pets of 
Mr. Villa, some of them foreigners, under the 
system of concessions. Never in the history 
of Mexico, nor the history of any civilized 
country has anything like it been known. The 
birds of prey are gathered along the border, 
and they have their representatives at the 
throne of Villa. 

The great struggle in Mexico is over the 
Tampico oil fields. Every move Villa makes 
in attempting to drive his foes out of his way 
in the north is toward Tampico. It is for the 
purpose of seizing and confiscating the oil 
wells in that district, which is the greatest oil 
district on this continent. Efforts have al- 
ready been made by agents of Villa in this 
country to finance him when he seizes those 
oil fields. Whose property is it? It makes no 
difference. One method or another of confis- 
cation is used. 



40 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 

When we read in the papers that a certain 
piece of property has been or will be confis- 
cated, we naturally think that means by a de- 
cree of some authorized or duly constituted 
body, followed up by the party whose property 
is taken having his day in court. What they 
understand in Mexico by a decree of confisca- 
tion is confiscation such as is perpetrated by 
the train robber upon the express messenger 
with a six-shooter at his head. No legal forms 
have ever been invoked or carried out or pro- 
ceeded under in any decree of confiscation in 
Mexico. 

In Mexico there were sisters of charity, wo- 
men engaged in undertaking to spread educa- 
tion among the poor people, women engaged 
in charitable work in the hospitals and sani- 
tariums, and there is not one of them left today 
to carry on the work, but hundreds of them 
have suffered the most horrible outrages at the 
hands of these so-called Constitutionalists. 
There is not one solely to blame, but all are 
equally guilty. There has just been driven out 
of Guadalajara in the last day or two one of 
the men who drove women along in front of 
him — kindly, gentle, charitable, educated wo- 
men. He drove them along, herding them for 
the use of his army when he evacuated Guad- 
alajara. I have said that every town was the 



CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 41 

enemy's country. In going through the coun- 
try the poor, common, ordinary Mexicans, 
who had nothing to do with the revolution, 
who were not interested in it, who were 
friendly, and who met them in a friendly way 
when they came through, have been mal- 
treated and shot down without provocation 
or excuse by so-called "Constitutionalists," 
"Villistas,'' and others, their homes burned, 
their property seized, and their women out- 
raged. It makes no difference who they are, 
every piece of loot that can be obtained is con- 
sidered legitimate loot, and every town that is 
captured is the enemy's country for the pur- 
pose of loot and worse than loot. 

I have denounced Villa before as a bandit 
without conscience, as a bloody murderer for 
hire, and I have known of him personally for 
years. When Mr. Villa went into the City of 
Mexico, at the time Gutierrez went in as Presi- 
dent, he visited a hotel in that city known as 
the Hotel Palaccio. The proprietor of the 
hotel is a French reservist who had joined his 
colors and who is now fighting for his country 
in France. Before leaving the City of Mexico 
this Frenchman made a schedule of his prop- 
erty and placed it in the hands of the French 
embassy. He left his wife, a young French 
woman, in charge of the hotel. I am not going 



42 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 

into all of the details, I do not want to arouse 
passion, but I do want the people to be in- 
formed. Suffice it to say that Villa, with a file 
of soldiers, dragged that French woman from 
her home, took her, screaming, down the street 
in his automobile, and kept her for four days — 
Villa himself, personally. That was no act of 
one of his irresponsible officers or vandals. I 
am not going to repeat rumor as to what hap- 
pened to her after that. These facts are veri- 
fied. This is the man whom the administra- 
tion has apparently, and undoubtedly sincerely, 
thought might be used to work out something 
good for Mexico. 

At the outside, 200,000 people have been in- 
terested in this revolution. There are fifteen 
million Mexican people appealing to the Chris- 
tian people of the United States and of the 
world. Religion itself is calling upon the civ- 
ilized nations of the earth to uphold that ban- 
ner which was carried among those poor In- 
dians three hundred and fifty years ago. 

If the State Department of this govern- 
ment would publish its reports, would publish 
statements as to why Huerta left Mexico, and 
a list of the outrages committed by Villa, the 
killing of men, women and children, the assas- 
sination of members of Congress, of members 
of the Senate, the assassination of everyone 



CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 43 

who disagreed with him, names and lists giv- 
en by the then President, Gutierrez, if these 
lists could be published, and if the people of 
the United States could see the affidavits which 
have been made by the women of the religious 
orders in Mexico and the statements which 
there has been no attempt made to controvert, 
showing the absolute breaking down of civili- 
zation, the President of the United States 
would no longer remain in ignorance and in 
control of the sentiment of the people of the 
United States. 



BRYAN— PROMOTER, 

By John Hazen Hazzard 

The shamelessness of Bryan in exploiting 
Pancho Villa is without parallel in American 
history. Together they form an unholy alli- 
ance that cannot be justified in terms of Amer- 
ican honor. In promoting the fortunes of this 
bandit the Secretary of State has resorted to 
methods which are so brazen and unscrupu- 
lous that intelligent observers are aghast at his 
startling self-revelation. Methods that are 
wholly devoid of the American spirit of fair 
play and more like the shifty, conscienceless 
tactics we are wont to ascribe to other people. 
Bryan's fellow countrymen have looked on the 
use of his exalted office to advertise "The Com- 
moner" as a stroke of business not exactly 
illegitimate. They have watched more with 
pity than censure his Chautauqua perform- 
ances for money. They have come to realize 
that this "man of the people" has an infinite 
capacity for accumulating wealth, which is 
certainly no crime, but rather an interesting 
commentary on his professions of self-sacrific- 
ing principles. But it is no exaggeration to 
sav that the people are dumb with amazement 



CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 45 

to find this man of advertised noble ideals 
prostituting his high office in the service of a 
notorious gunman and cutthroat. 

To what end? Has he really hypnotized 
himself into the belief that in some inscrutable 
way of Providence his disgraceful actions will 
be of service to humanity? There have been 
men who have burned "witches'' at the stake 
with good intentions. There are and always 
have been those who believe that the end justi- 
fies the means. Our notable penal institutions 
are full of them. 

There is no doubt that Bryan does not want 
to have the United States at war with any 
other country while he is in a position to use 
his influence against war. It has been pointed 
out that the Secretary has keen visions of the 
$40,000 Nobel peace prize. Even so, the fact 
remains that Bryan wants peace at any price. 
But what must one think of the warped nature 
of a man whose conscience will not let him 
fight his neighbor with whom he has a quarrel, 
but who sees nothing wrong in hiring a thug 
"to beat him up"? 

What must the nation think of a man who 
carries that warped soul into high office and 
injects it into an international misunderstand- 
ing involving the welfare of a hundred million 
people? Is he a sincere lover of peace or is he 



46 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 

simply a monumental hypocrite? When the 
full history of the Bryan-Villa alliance is writ- 
ten, it will scarcely be believed that such , a 
thing could be in this enlightened age. 

Perhaps out of this Mexican welter and 
muddle may develop something of lasting 
good to Mexico. It may conceivably be that a 
United States' protectorate over the neighbor- 
ing republic, or United States' occupation and 
exploitation of that rich country, even without 
"the consent of the governed," will bring peace 
and prosperity to the Mexican people. The 
scroll of the future is yet to be read. What- 
ever the future may be, for good or ill, in Mex- 
ico, history will record that the methods of the 
administration in bringing Huerta "to terms" 
were unworthy of American traditions and 
particularly that the activities and intrigues of 
the Secretary of State were unworthy of any 
honorable man and a disgrace to our country. 

History will record that the Secretary of 
State used his office to promote and press- 
agent a self-confessed murderer and bandit in 
a friendly neighboring country as a weapon 
with which to overthrow the ruler of that 
country. Was that American? 

That in this work of promotion truth was 
suppressed or distorted and untruths were de- 
liberately concocted. 



CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 47 

That widespread brigandage, robbery, loot 
and rape were fostered and the facts of mur- 
der and pillage metamorphosed into the pleas- 
ing fiction of "constitutionalism." 

That the United States consuls in Mexico, 
simply commercial agents, were used by the 
Secretary of State as agents of information 
and propaganda for the Mexican rebels. Was 
that American fair play? 

That American lives and property were de- 
stroyed as a result of the encouragement of 
Mexican disorder and that because responsi- 
bility rested on his bandit allies the Secretary 
of State belittled the loss or viewed it "with 
complacency.'' Was that American? 

That the Secretary of State knew that 
Pancho Villa deliberately murdered the Eng- 
lishman, Benton; that he lied in detail about 
the killing; that he disposed of millions of dol- 
lars' worth of stolen cattle and cotton in this 
country, and, knowing all this and infinitely 
more of the man's crimes, he had a clerk in the 
State Department prepare a laudatory biog- 
raphy of the bandit. 

That he sent a telegram to a Chicago friend 
emphasizing the point that some of the Amer- 
ican refugees to protect whom Huerta was do- 
ing everything humanly possible "might be 
executed," when he had information that they 
were safe. Was that playing straight? 



48 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 

That he used the well-intentioned mediators 
of Argentina, Brazil and Chile as a catspaw 
to help Villa on his way to sack Mexico City. 

That through a State Department agent, 
Carothers, he advised, directed and instigated 
Villa in his bloody career. 

That he maintained intimate relations with 
the rebel junta in Washington and that when 
a Mexican lawyer, Bonales Sandoval, ap- 
proached Villa in the interests of Felix Diaz, 
the junta wired to Villa that "Washington 
would view with satisfaction the execution of 
Sandoval." 

That he consistently suppressed facts unfa- 
vorable to the pretentions of the rebels. Was 
that fair play? 

That as Secretary of State he was virtually 
an agent of a Mexican revolution, planned, fos- 
tered and financed in the United States, which 
has brought Mexico to the verge of ruin and 
cost thousands of lives. 

If such a man should get a peace prize under 
any circumstances it would be putting a pre- 
mium on underhanded war and hypocritical 
pretension. 



BRYAN'S FOREIGN POLICY. 

The Spoil System 

Department of State, Washington, 

August 20, 1913. 
Hon. Walker W. Vick, 

Santo Domingo, D. R. 

My Dear Mr. Vick: Now that you have 
arrived and are acquainting yourself with the 
situation, can you let me know what positions 
you have at your disposal with which to re- 
ward deserving Democrats? Whenever you 
desire a suggestion from me in regard to a man 
for any place there, call on me. 

You have had enough experience in politics 
to know how valuable workers are when the 
campaign is on and how difficult it is to find 
suitable rewards for all the deserving. I do 
not know to what extent a knowledge of Span- 
ish is necessary for employees. Let me know 
what is required, together with the salary, and 
when appointments are likely to be made. 

Sullivan will be down before long and you 
and he together ought to be able to bring about 
such reforms as may be necessary there. You 
will find Sullivan a strong, courageous, reliable 
fellow. The more I have seen of him the bet- 
ter satisfied I am that he will fit into the place 
there and do what is necessary to be done. 

W. J. BRYAN. 



VILLA'S TACTICAL BLUNDER. 

The unspeakable Villa prides himself on be- 
ing the friend and ally of President Wilson 
and the instrument with which the latter hopes 
to overthrow Huerta. But Villa is a blunder- 
ing ruffian whose regard for human life is so 
small that he loses sight of his own interests. 
He is continually bringing embarrassment to 
President Wilson through his ignorance and 
native brutality. This most recent outrage 
laid at Villa's door is serious. Had William S. 
Benton been an American citizen his death 
would have been a mere incident — regrettable, 
of course, but without diplomatic significance. 
But Benton happened to be a subject of Great 
Britain and the customary "aggressive atti- 
tude" of Great Britain in "pressing for repara- 
tion where her subjects have been wronged" 
calls for something more than renewed assur- 
ance of "watchful waiting." 

* * ^ Villa kills with little or no provoca- 
tion, and impudently tells Americans that 
when he orders somebody to be shot it is "no- 
body's business" but his own. Yet Villa is the 
man upon whom President Wilson has pinned 
his hope. It appears that in all this terrible 



CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 51 

Mexican lawlessness and slaughter the Wash- 
ington administration has but a single definite 
purpose — to oust Huerta. It is a stubborn and 
unreasonable obsession based on the fact that 
Huerta refused to abdicate when called upon 
to do so. From the day that Huerta defied 
President Wilson there has been but one as- 
pect of the case, so far as the general public in 
America could see, and that was the firm de- 
termination of President Wilson to force him 
out. 

If the murder of William S. Benton results 
in an awakening of our own government to a 
change of policy toward Mexico, it will have 
accomplished more than the sacrifice of scores 
of lives of Americans heretofore, in that re- 
public. We have assumed a kind of unofficial 
protectorate over Mexico. We have, in effect, 
assured other nations that we will afford ade- 
quate protection for their citizens. As long as 
only Americans; suffered in Mexico foreign 
governments made no protests. But now that 
an Englishman has been killed, in the simple 
defense of his property against destruction by 
Villa's soldiers, the United States government 
is inclined to think that the incident warrants 
attention. — Kansas City "Journal.'' 



THE MEXICAN PEOPLE. 

William Lemke 

The question naturally suggests itself, how 
could such a murderer as Villa get a following 
sufficient to overthrow a government of fifteen 
million people? The answer is, that Villa did 
not overthrow the Mexican government. But 
Villa assisted and financed by American oil in- 
terests — elevated, romanced and paraded in 
the public press, and backed up by the Wilson 
administration, did overthrow it. Our Presi- 
dent allowed him arms and ammunition, but 
denied them to the Mexican government. He 
berated and financially crippled that govern- 
ment, and finally landed the marines at Vera 
Cruz in behalf of Villa's interests, and Villa's 
interests were the interests of certain Ameri- 
can oil kings. 

It must be remembered that Mexico's fifteen 
million population is less than ten per cent 
white. There are some seventy-eight different 
Indian tribes, with many different languages 
and customs. Of the fifteen million, forty per 
cent are pure Indian, and fifty per cent mix- 
tures of various degrees. 

I do not wish to do an injustice to the Mexi- 
can people. I have a higher regard for some 



CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO S3 

of her Indians than I have for our government 
officials, who assisted Villa. The Mexicans are 
not all of the Villa and Zapata type. After 
three years of turmoil, less than two hundred 
thousand out of fifteen million are in arms. 
The great majority of Mexicans are non-re- 
sistant. Outside of a few Indian tribes and 
individuals, the Mexicans are altogether too 
docile and submissive. Their patient suffering 
without resistance makes such monsters as 
Villa arid Zapata possible. 

Our Indian lived in a wigwam — the Mexican 
Indian lives in a hut built of adobe, poles, or 
bamboo, thatched with palm leaves. He owns 
a few cattle, goats or sheep, some chickens and 
occasionally a pig or two, while a burro fur- 
nishes him with means of transportation. He 
cultivates a few acres of corn and beans and 
knows how to live within his means. I had 
seen him in rags, but before the land was 
cursed by Villa and Zapata, I had never seen 
him hungry. 

If we think of government in connection 
with the Mexican people, we must think of gov- 
ernment in connection with our own Indian. 
How have we governed him? In spite of our 
constitution and Declaration of Independence, 
we have governed him with the bayonet. We 



54 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 

have not given him the right of citizenship, nor 
the right of suffrage — we have killed him in- 
stead. President Wilson talks of self-govern- 
ment among the Mexican Indians, but has he 
given the Porto Ricans, the Filipinos or the 
Hawaiians the right of self-government — does 
he allow them to elect their own officials ? No, 
he appoints "deserving Democrats" looking 
for a job. He has grown maudlin over the con- 
ditions of the Mexican Indian, but has re^ 
mained silent over the fact that, during the 
past two years, scores of our Indians starved 
to death on the Standing Rock Reservation of 
the Dakotas. The Waters-Pierce Oil Com- 
pany has not had occasion to press-romance 
these Indians — so they escaped the President's 
notice. The Rev. Aaron McGaffey Beede tried 
in vain to get the President's sympathetic ear. 
The Waters-Pierce Oil Company, in order 
to distract the attention of the American peo- 
ple from the real cause and source of the revo- 
lutions in Mexico, declared, through its subsi- 
dized press, that the Mexicans were fighting 
for land. They knew that the American peo- 
ple were ignorant of the real conditions in 
Mexico, and that their sympathies could be 
easily aroused. We are always ready to sym- 
pathize with the unfortunate in a foreign land, 



CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 55 

but forget all about them at home. How about 
President Wilson's army of unemployed — do 
they all own land? But let us pass on lest we 
embarrass the President. He too, intimated 
that the Mexicans were fighting for land, and 
that they had been oppressed for generations. 

Yet the President knows that the Mexicans 
that are in arms are not the tillers of the soil — 
he knows that Villa and Zapata never cultivat- 
ed anything but crime. He knows that these 
same leaders and their followers have robbed 
the sons of toil, ravished their women and car- 
ried away their daughters — that they are not 
fighting for land, but for loot and lust. The 
President has this information on file in the 
State Department. 

There is evidence on file in the State Depart- 
ment showing that the Waters-Pierce Oil 
Company has been the instigator of the revolu- 
tions in Mexico. Letters to the same effect, 
purporting to be photographic copies, have ap- 
peared in the New York Herald and other 
papers. The names of President Wilson and 
Secretary Bryan appear in these letters, and 
Mr. Lind, the President's confidential agent, 
is represented in these letters as advising the 
rebels how to get around the embargo by sub- 



56 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 

terfuge during the mediation proceedings, and 
as assuring them that this subterfuge would 
have the President's approval. 

While there has been a struggle between an 
American and an English Oil Company for the 
possession of the Mexican oil fields, there has 
not been a struggle for land. The Mexican 
can buy or lease land at such a low figure and 
on such easy terms that it would be foolish for 
him to fight for it. Many of the thousands 
of Americans, that our government has helped 
to rob, located in Mexico because land is cheap- 
er and more productive there than in our own 
countrv. 

There have been abuses in the Mexican land 
system, but has our own system been perfect? 
The same conditions exist today in Porto Rico, 
in the Philippine and Hawaiian Islands as do 
in Mexico. The great majority of people in 
these islands own no land — they are poor and 
ragged. They are paid about twenty-five cents 
a day for their labor. These islands are part 
of the United States. Charity begins at home. 
What has the President done for these people? 
Again, a few individuals own all of the mines, 
railroads and oil fields in the United States. 
These are all sources of production as well as 
land. Why does the President not attempt to 
give these to the poor people? 



CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 57 

There is room for reform — there has been 
graft in Mexico, but all the graft in the last 
thirty-five years in Mexico does not equal 
that of one or two individuals in New York or 
Chicago. Is Secretary Bryan's search for jobs 
for "deserving Democrats" not in itself politi- 
cal corruption and graft — is it not a bartering 
of public offices to political henchmen? Is the 
integrity of the nation secure under such a sys- 
tem? With this as an example, and our own 
President writing personal letters endorsing 
Roger Sullivan of Chicago and others for the 
United States Senate, just because they be- 
longed to his party, we certainly were in no po- 
sition to use "moral suasion'' on Mexico. 
There have been wrongs in Mexico — the la- 
borer has not always received full justice, but 
before our President destroyed the Mexican 
government, it was impossible to find outrages 
equal to those perpetrated in the mining re- 
gions of Colorado, West Virginia and Michi- 
gan. What did our President do in these 
cases? He first consulted with John D. Rocke- 
feller and his associates, and then sent the 
United States troops to the Colorado mines. 
It would seem that he should have been the last 
person to throw the stone, and yet he was 
clamoring loudest to throw the first. 



THE CITIZENS OF EL PASO PROTEST. 

El Paso, Texas, Feb. 20th, 1914. 
Senator A. B. Fall, 

Washington, D. C. 
At an indignation meeting here tonight, at- 
tended by tv/o thousand people, and hundreds 
unable to get into the buildings, a preamble 
and resolution was unanimously and enthus- 
iastically adopted, copy of which has been 
wired to the President and sent out through 
the Associated Press to all the world. Feel- 
ing very bitter over the brutal murder of Ben- 
ton. * * * 

Resolutions Adopted 

Whereas, Mr. William S. Benton, a highly 
respected and honored citizen of the State of 
Chihuahua, and subject of Great Britain, was 
brutally murdered and assassinated at Juarez, 
Mexico, by Francisco Villa, we, the citizens of 
El Paso, Texas, and refugees from Mexico, at 
an indigation meeting held in El Paso, Febru- 
ary 20th, 1914, wishing to protest most em- 
phatically against the cruel and violent treat- 
ment which has been accorded foreigners dur- 
ing the last three years of revolution in that 



CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 59 

country, beg to submit to the world and the 
American people, the following brief state- 
ment of facts : 

The cold-blooded and heartless assassination 
of William S. Benton, without any cause what- 
ever other than the fact that he went to Juarez 
to protest against the confiscation of his prop- 
erty, the Los Remedios ranch in northern Mex- 
ico, which has been repeatedly looted, is but 
another crime to be added to the hundreds that 
have already been committed against all for- 
eigners living in Mexico, who have not been 
driven from their homes, their property de- 
stroyed; in many cases women have been out- 
raged and foreigners murdered in cold blood, 
and for no other reason than on account of 
their nationality. 

We believe that the State Department at 
Washington has persistently suppressed facts 
concerning the true conditions in Mexico, and 
endeavored through inspired newspaper arti- 
cles and by other means to mislead the Ameri- 
can people, and form public opinion for polit- 
ical purposes in support of a policy that is ruin- 
ous to all foreign interests in Mexico and the 
Mexican people themselves. 

In support of the statement we would call 
attention to a recent article in the New York 
World which purported to be a semi-official 



60 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 

interview coming from the Secretary of State's 
office, and which stated that while a great 
many Americans had lost their lives in Mexico, 
not one had been murdered solely on account 
of his nationality; this statement we know to 
be absolutely false, and we believe there are re- 
ports on file in the State Department from 
their own consuls to the contrary. We recall 
in the last few months such cases as the assas- 
sination of Mr. Burton, at Santa Rosalia, Mr. 
Hayes and Mr. Thomas, at Madera, and Mr. 
Brooks in northern Chihuahua, and in every 
one of these cases they were brutally murdered 
for no other reason than that they were Amer- 
ican citizens. 

Some months ago the State Department of- 
ficially declared in one of its messages to Mex- 
ico that it would hold the Mexican leaders per- 
sionally responsible for outrages committed 
against the American citizens. At the present 
moment our government is harboring Gen. 
Ynez Salazar, who has an unbroken record ever 
since he took the field in Mexico of outrages 
committed against our citizens. There are 
many citizens of this city who were cruelly and 
brutally treated by this man, many who have 
been held for ransom and at least one, Mr. 
Fountain, who was shot by his order, and thus 
far he has been immune from all punishment 
by our government. 



CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 61 

At the present moment Maximo Castillo, 
who for many months has been at the head of 
an outlaw band in northern Mexico, holding 
our citizens for ransom and perpetrating all 
kinds of outrages, whose band recently burned 
alive between fifty and sixty passengers in the 
Cumbre tunnel on the Northwestern railroad, 
is being given an asylum and protection by our 
government. 

We submit these facts as evidence that our 
government is, through a weak and vacillating 
policy, encouraging these lawless leaders to 
commit all kinds of outrages against foreign- 
ers, and doing a great injustice to our own 
people, resulting in a loss of hundreds of mil- 
lions of dollars of foreign capital, the murder 
of many of our citizens, the raping of American 
women, and ruination of Mexico itself. 

The career of Francisco Villa, a man who 
has been an outlaw and a murderer for many 
years, and who is now wielding an arbitrary 
and despotic reign of terror in Northern Mex- 
ico, is more cruel and barbarous in his methods 
than any tyrant in the world's history. It is a 
fact that he has treated with contempt the rep- 
resentatives of nations, and that he does not 
hesitate to put a man to death for the slightest 
cause and for in any way incurring his displeas- 
ure. We believe it a disgrace to our govern- 



62 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 

merit and the American people to tolerate such 
a man, much less to give him moral support; 
Therefore, be it 

Resolved, that this message be sent to the 
President of the United States, the British Am- 
bassador at Washington, to our United States 
Senators, and those of New Mexico, with the 
request that it be read into the Congressional 
Record, and we apply to them and to all our 
representatives in both branches of Congress 
to adopt a resolution to compel the State De- 
partment to transmit to Congress its records 
pertaining to the outrages committed against 
Americans and foreigners in Mexico, and to 
take such action as will give our people the 
protection guaranteed undier their constitu- 
tional rights and maintain the honor and pres- 
tige of our country in the eyes of the world. 
We apply to you to make known the facts to 
the American people and to see that our citi- 
zens who are living in Mexico and have in- 
vested their money there in good faith are 
given the protection justly due them. 

GEORGE CURRY, Chairman, 
Ex-Governor of New Mexico. 



SPEECH BY CONGRESSMAN AINEY. 

Delivered in the House 

This resolution was presented because of in- 
formation coming from Mexico disclosing, if 
true, a condition there existing involving the 
rights and safety of American citizens so hor- 
rible and unspeakable in detail as to shock the 
world. The walls of civilized warfare were 
broken down and neither the lives nor sex of 
noncombatants were spared by the ignorant, 
brutal and lustful looters, constituting the 
misnamed constitutionalist army of Gen. Villa. 

It seeped through to the public's ear that 
outrage after outrage upon these American 
citizens had been reported by our consular 
representatives in Mexico to the State Depart- 
ment at Washington; there, after feeble and 
ineffective protests, to be pigeonholed and to 
gather dust while the administration watched 
and waited. 

The President, exerting the pressure of his 
high position, has asked the Congress of the 
United States to surrender its right of inde- 
pendent judgment; to reverse the policy of a 
great Nation already worked into law; to re- 
pudiate the platform declaration of his own 



64 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 

and other political parties, and to do so in the 
face of his own strongly stated pre-election 
utterance. 

He asks the members of this Congress to 
reverse themselves without a fact being 
divulged or a reason presented for such a re- 
markable request other than the vague and 
disquieting suggestion of international com- 
plications of grave importance and nearer con- 
sequence. So grave and important and of 
nearer consequence are these international 
matters that the membership of this House 
must no longer think or judge for themselves, 
but are called upon to abandon principles and 
position heretofore taken and advocated, be- 
cause an extreme condition has arisen in inter- 
national affairs requiring this surrender of 
brain and heart and mind and plan. 

The tolls speech of the President created 
great anxiety in the hearts of the people of this 
country. It said too much or too little. It 
led one irresistibly to the conclusion that the 
Mexican policy of the President has not borne 
the full fruitage he expects for it, but that 
complications have arisen possibly involving 
Mexico's relations with Germany and Japan 
requiring us to have the moral support of Eng- 
land, in payment for which the American peo- 



CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 65 

pie are asked to repeal the toll provision 
exempting American ships engaged in coast- 
wise trade. 

Whatever may be the Administration's rea- 
sons, they should not be hidden in a corner. 
This Nation can not support an unknown as 
against a known policy. When the officially 
ascertained facts are withheld from them, the 
public will be forced to form their conclusions 
from unofficial sources. 

Starting with a false premise which has led 
him to run counter to approved diplomatic 
precedents in refusing to recognize the de 
facto government of Gen. Huerta and in mak- 
ing demands so drastic in character and con- 
trary to the announced and long standing 
policy of noninterference of this Government 
as to be in themselves under the law of nations 
acts of war, the President has found himself 
unsupported by a single nation other than the 
negative support which may be implied by the 
obedience of three South American republics 
to the request of the United States to withhold 
for the present their recognition of Gen. 
Huerta. ^ ^ ^ 

If the gentleman refers to the papers of to- 
day, the dispatches which were no doubt in- 
spired by those supporting Gen. Villa, and in- 



66 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 

fluenced largely from the Hibbs Building in 
Washington, I frankly say I do not give cre- 
dence to all such statements. I believe even 
today, handicapped as he has been by reason of 
the violation of the principles of neutrality and 
recognition which have heretofore led this 
country to act, Gen. Huerta is better qualified 
to bring peace in Mexico than any other Mex- 
ican in sight. * ^ '^ 

The gentleman misunderstood me if he 
thought I said they were written in the Hibbs 
Building. I suggested to the gentleman that 
they were undoubtedly inspired from the 
Hibbs Building. If the gentleman will look at 
the papers he will find they are not Associated 
Press dispatches. Giving all credence to the 
reporter, the reporter has to get his informa- 
tion from inspired sources in Mexico, from the 
interests supporting Villa; and I would like to 
suggest to the gentleman that the purpose of 
my resolution, which the Foreign Affairs Com- 
mittee has not seen fit to report favorably, un- 
der a suggestion which, I assume, comes from 
the administration that it be not so reported, 
has deprived us, and the gentleman as well as 
myself, of the opportunity of knowing the de- 
tails of conditions in Mexico as the representa- 
tives of the American people in this Congress 
are entitled to know them, hj * ^h 



CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 67 

Villa neither reads nor writes, except as in 
jail he learned to write his first name, "Francis- 
co." To those who know him as a vulgar, ig- 
norant, and brutal specimen of humanity the 
high-sounding phrases contained in dispatches 
purporting to repeat his words carry their own 
refutation. 

An effort to depict him as a hero, driven to 
the hills by great wrongs inflicted upon him, 
has failed in the light of truth. The glory 
with which an inspired press sought to clothe 
him has been stripped away by the Benton and 
other gory incidents of his career, and he 
stands before the world as a hideous monster, 
gloating over the bodies of his helpless and 
quivering victims ; a man who kills for the love 
of killing, whose armored heart appeals for 
sympathy never reach; a man who has no pa- 
triotic sentiments, who has stood for lawless- 
ness rather than for order; a man whose love 
of war is not inspired by love of liberty nor 
love of country, but longing for loot. Every 
general of the constitutionalist army, with the 
possible technical and nominal exception of 
Villa, was in pillaging rebellion against Mad- 
ero. * * * 

Villa belongs to the hills. Peace has no 
charms for him. Against a strong and reso- 
lute force he would not tarry a moment, for he 



68 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 

is as cowardly as he is brutal, and he has the 
weakness and fear of a blustering bully. The 
success of Villa would turn Mexico over to a 
reign of terror. ^ ^ ^ 

At Durango, in spite of the protest of the 
American consul, the city was given over by 
the constitutionalist general to the unre- 
strained license of his soldiers for 24 hours be- 
cause it was said to be the only way of paying 
them. Little girls scarcely 10 years of age 
and women did not escape and now hang their 
heads in awful shame. American women were 
gathered in MacDonald's Institute, where 
their husbands barricaded the building and 
fought to preserve them from the rapacity of 
the rebel soldiers. 

Specific instances, the details too revolting 
to be repeated, are, I am informed, contained 
in the consular reports in the archives of the 
State Department, revealing conditions which 
affect the rights of American citizens, their 
wives, children, and property. 

The cry of suffering coming up from Mexico 
uttered by American citizens, whose lives 
have been sacrificed, whose wives and daugh- 
ters have been ravished, whose property has 
been confiscated, has not reached the sympa- 
thetic and responsive ear of the Chief Execu- 
tive. * Hf * 



CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 69 

How to turn vast acres into small farms and 
inspire the populace with a desire to own and 
till them is a problem which has confronted 
Mexico for a hundred years. The people 
must acquire the farming desire before any 
project will be successful. To get a piece of 
land for the purpose of selling it and not to 
cultivate it is the mental height to which the 
masses have thus far attained.* * * 

The position adopted by the executive that 
Americans should leave Mexico upon his 
warning, or failing to abandon their homes and 
property no particular duty or responsibility 
was owing them by the Government, is 
abhorrent to one of patriotic senses. 

The rights of American citizens are as deep- 
seated as the rock upon which their claim for 
liberty rests. It is as fixed as our national 
heritage. It follows them in every country 
and every clime. Neither the despotic act of 
foreign government nor the edict of their own 
chief executive can legally or morally despoil 
them of it. The direction of the President 
to Americans to abandon their all and leave 
Mexico was as unwarranted as it was un- 
American. It worked a confiscation of their 
property as effectually as any act of brigan- 
dage perpetrated by the unrestrained marau- 
ders of Mexico. * * * 



70 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 

The danger of war comes not from those 
who seek to know the truth but from those 
who would conceal it. * * * 

A nation cannot long endure except it be 
supported by the patriotism of its people. 
Patriotism cannot be engendered except as it 
is inspired by a sense of protecting strength 
and support extended its citizens. The pride 
of American citizenship has been that the 
American flag embraced in its protecting folds 
the humblest citizen in every land he chanced 
to be. When a nation is too busy with aca- 
demic questions or too indifferent to hear and 
heed the supplication of her helpless citizens 
it will have reached the first milestone of dis- 
integration in its downward career, and when 
the flag of her citizenship fails to afford pro- 
tection then will come loss of faith in and 
respect for her institutions; and without faith 
and respect, love of country soon ceases and 
the end is near, h^ * * 



AMERICAN REFUGEES. 

William Lemke 

After our President formed his alliance with 
Villa, he ordered all the Americans to aban- 
don their property and leave Mexico. We do 
not know whether this was at the request of 
Villa or the Waters-Pierce Oil Company, but 
we do know that it was just what the Waters- 
Pierce Oil Company and the President's bandit 
ally wanted. It lessened the necessity of mur- 
dering Americans, and thus tended to avoid 
complications with the American people. 
There was no danger of a misunderstanding 
with the President, because in his dealings with 
Mexico, he did not consider the lives and prop- 
erty of American citizens. The President's 
proclamation just as effectually confiscated the 
property of the American citizens in Mexico 
as the decree of any court could have. It gave 
millions of dollars worth of property to the 
rebels with which to fight the battles of the 
Waters-Pierce Oil Company, and provided 
them with the means to enrich a few million- 
aire firearms and ammunition companies, 
when later the President raised the embargo. 

The President and his Secretary did not 
hesitate to add insult to injury by compelling 



72 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 

these American citizens, made refugees and 
the victims of bandits by his proclamation, to 
take steerage passage, and in many cases 
crowded men, women and children under a 
blazing tropical sun, into filthy, unhealthy cat- 
tle boats. Hundreds of these innocent victims 
have not, and never will fully regain their 
health as a result of this ordeal. There is not 
one word in the Congressional Record author- 
izing or suggesting to the President to treat 
American citizens in this dishonorable and 
brutal manner. Not satisfied with this, the 
President went further and even compelled 
these innocent victims of his proclamation to 
sign promissory notes for the amount of the 
steerage passage. These notes bore eight per 
cent interest after maturity and were made 
payable to the order of William Jennings 
Bryan. 

Benjamin C. Martin, of Garfield, New Mex- 
ico, was one of these unfortunate American ref- 
ugees. He was robbed of everything, even 
part of his clothing, and then bound hand and 
foot by the rebels — the tools of the Waters- 
Pierce Oil Company — and left to die. He re- 
mained in this condition for twelve hours, 
when a Mexican woman discovered him, cut 
the ropes and liberated him. He walked eighty- 
seven miles to the nearest railroad that had 



CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 73 

not been destroyed. He then notified the Mex- 
ican government of what had happened to 
him, and President Huerta furnished him with 
free transportation and food to Mexico City. 
From there he made his way to Vera Cruz, 
where he applied to the American Consul for 
transportation to Galveston. Steerage pass- 
age was granted after he had been closely 
questioned as to his financial condition and 
after he had signed the remarkable docu- 
ment, which is in the form of a promissory 
note, a correct translation of which is given 
below. The translation was made from a 
photographic copy of the original, by Prof. 
H. R. Brush, Professor of Spanish at the Uni- 
versity of North Dakota. 

Note for Twenty-Six Dollars American Gold 

I owe and will pay, on the 15th day of May, 
1914, to William J. Bryan, Secretary of State 
of the United States of North America, or to 
his order, the sum of twenty-six dollars Amer- 
ican money, for value received in cash to my 
complete satisfaction in quality of a mercantile 
loan to be devoted integrally to acts of com- 
merce, and as this sum is actually in my power, 
I renounce the right of opposing the acception 
of money not handed over. 



74 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 

I will make the payment in American money 
current of the weight and standard marked by 
the monetary law in force or in bank notes ex- 
cluding any other species of money or paper, 
even though its acceptance be compulsory by 
law, leaving to Mr. William J. Bryan the priv- 
ilege of selecting the sort of money in which 
payment is to be made in case the weight of 
actual standard of that agreed upon should 
vary. 

If the sum mentioned in this document 
should not be punctually discharged at matu- 
rity, I will after that date pay on it the interest 
accruing from the date of maturity until com- 
pletely discharged, at the rate of eight per cent 
annually, making hereby formal renunciation 
of the prescription and of section 1 of article 
1044 of the statute of commerce which estab- 
lishes it and agreeing to reimburse Mr. Bryan 
for all the cost which he may incur, both judi- 
cial and extrajudicial, in order to recover the 
face of this note and of the proceeds accruing, 
even though they should be for more than 
five years. 

It is expressly agreed that the credit pro- 
ceeding from this note is by its nature mercan- 
tile, and shall not in any case or for any reason 
be subject to any discharges or delays, to 
which effect I renounce the provisions of arti- 



CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 75 

cles 988, 989, 991 and 994 of the statute of com- 
merce which relates to business dealings be- 
tween bankrupts and their creditors and to the 
effect of said agreements. 

(Signed) Benjamin C. Martin. 

Vera Cruz, Ver., March 19, 1914. 

This is not dollar diplomacy — it is eight per 
cent diplomacy. When President Huerta of 
Mexico learned that our government supplied 
only steerage passage for its citizens, he or- 
dered that funds be given to the refugees to en- 
able them to travel first-class. He said: "We 
desire that the Americans who leave Mexico 
carry with them the remembrance of the com- 
fort and safety which have characterized their 
stay in this country, rather than the possible 
penury and poverty of the place whither they 
are going." And so the Mexican Government, 
in several hundred cases, paid the difference 
between steerage and first class passage to 
American refugees. Compare this generosity 
of President Huerta with the niggardly per- 
formance of President Wilson and Secretary 
Bryan. 

Shylock never demanded his pound of flesh 
in a more shameful document than did the 
author of the "New Freedom" and the author 
of the "Prince of Peace" in the above note. 
The words, "I renounce the right of opposing 



76 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 

the acception of money not handed over/' was 
undoubtedly put into this note because the ad- 
ministration knew that twenty-six dollars for 
steerage passage from Vera Cruz to Galveston 
was extortionate. Before the railroads in Mex- 
ico were destroyed the rate for first class pass- 
age from Minneapolis to Mexico City and re- 
turn was fifty-six dollars. The distance from 
Minneapolis to Mexico City and return via El 
Paso is five thousand two hundred and 
ninety-four miles. The distance from Vera 
Cruz to Galveston is but six hundred 
and eighty miles, and yet our government per- 
mitted the steamship companies to charge 
twenty-six dollars for steerage passage one 
way, and forty dollars for first class passage 
one way, to the American refugees, whom the 
President had ordered to leave Mexico. Our 
President and his Secretary paid these extor- 
tionate rates with government money without 
a protest. 



COWARDLY DESERTION OF AMERI- 
CAN CITIZENS. 

Speech by Congressman Mondell. 

The gentleman from Texas wants to follow 
the administration. I wonder if he desires to 
be understood as following the administration 
in what occurred at Tampico. Tampico was 
attacked by the rebels, and several hundred 
Americans were gathered in a hotel and felt 
reasonably safe because in the' neighboring 
river, but a short distance away, lay three 
American gunboats, with their guns shotted, 
their decks lined with sand bags, and the 
marines with rapid firing guns alert behind 
them. Our forces had just taken Vera Cruz, 
and the news had been flashed to Tampico 
that the invader had landed; that he was shoot- 
ing Mexicans. Meanwhile the rebel forces 
were thundering at the gates, and so the cry 
went round, "They have invaded our land at 
Vera Cruz and shot down our people; they 
have furnished the guns with which the rebels 
are pounding at our doors," and out of this 
grew an anti-American demonstration. The 
mobs gathered around the hotel where these 
Americans — men, women and little children — 



78 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 

were gathered, depending upon the marines 
and gunboats for protection. And then what 
happened? While the mobs howled and bat- 
tered at the doors, while every horrid and vile 
threat that those savage and angry Mexicans 
could conjure up were being shouted at these 
imprisoned refugees and strong men stormed 
in their impotent wrath, and women — Ameri- 
can women — and children cowed! in terror, 
those American gunboats, on command of the 
Secretary of the Navy, three times repeated 
over the protest of the American admiral, 
weighed anchor and steamed out to sea, leav- 
ing two thousand Americans — men, women 
and children — defenseless in the face of that 
howling mob, inflamed to madness because we 
were attacking their countrymen at Vera Cruz, 
and had allowed the shipment of arms to the 
rebels who were attacking them and threaten- 
ing their lives and property. Fortunately, 
there was a German gunboat and a German 
commander at hand, and when our own brave 
men had been ordered away the German com- 
mander ordered the mob dispersed, which was 
done. This German commander then sent his 
men to escort the American men, women and 
children to his boat. Fortunately, there was 
an English ship and an English officer at hand 



CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 79 

to assist in the rescue of our people. * * * 
When our citizens, two thousand of them, 
were rescued by German and English officers 
and sailors and taken out to sea in German and 
English boats they found seventeen American 
dreadnaughts lying at anchor — two thousand 
Americans, stalwart men, fair women, little 
children, in danger of death, torture, and dis- 
honor — seventeen of the finest ships afloat, ten 
miles away, three gunboats, manned and shot- 
ted, .weighing anchor and sailing out to sea, 
leaving them to their fate. Does the gentle- 
man from Texas follow the administration in 
that incident? * * * 

Above all things I am thankful, and from the 
information I have I am satisfied, that no man 
wearing the American uniform was responsible 
for that desertion. Three different times, so I 
am told, the officer in command protested the 
orders sent him, and only obeyed when those 
orders were made final and imperative from 
Washington. How he must have felt, how the 
brave men under him must have felt, as they 
sailed away can be readily imagined. This 
Tampico incident is so astounding, so utterly 
contrary to all American traditions, that some 
of our people have found it difficult to credit it, 
much less to understand it. But when one 



80 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 

views it in the light of the policy which the 
administration has steadily pursued toward the 
Mexican situation, it is simple enough. 

The one end and aim and only purpose of 
the administration's policy has evidently been 
the downfall and elimination of Huerta. The 
taking of Vera Cruz had so inflamed the Mexi- 
can mind, military and civilian, constitution- 
alist and federal, that there was a strong prob- 
ability that the contending forces at Tampico 
might join against the common enemy; that 
the rebels might cease their assault upon Tam- 
pico and thereby disarrange the administra- 
tion's policy of playing one force against the 
other as a means of the elimination of Huerta. 
Forgotten or ignored was the duty of protect- 
ing the lives and the honor of our people in the 
consuming desire to carry out the administra- 
tion plan. And so the flags were dipped, the 
anchors weighed, and while the mobs howled, 
hurled their insults and battered at the doors, 
our people were abandoned to their fate. If 
there is any other explanation than this of the 
Tampico incident, let some one give it. If this 
was not a cold-blooded abandonment in carry- 
ing out the policy of the administration to 
bring about the downfall of the Federal Gov- 



CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 81 

ernment in Mexico without regard to loss of 
life or property, I should like to know what 
excuse there was for it. 

I shall insert in the record as part of my re- 
marks a statement handed to me by John I. 
Newell, an honest American citizen, who was 
at Tampico at the time the incident I have re- 
ferred to occurred. The statement is as fol- 
lows : "* * * Monday, April 20th, in the eve- 
ning. Admiral Mayo received instructions to 
withdraw all gunboats from the river. * * * 
The three gunboats, the Dolphin, Chester and 
Des Moines, in the river had been stripped for 
action. h« jh * Admiral Mayo protested 
against the removal of the gunboats at least 
three times, and I have every reason to believe 
he stated that his withdrawing the boats would 
subject hundreds and thousands of Americans 
to extreme danger. I know that the American 
consul sent a long message of protest stating 
the extreme danger that would arise to all 
Americans. These messages did not avail and 
at nine-thirty o'clock, April 21st, the last of 
the gunboats left the river. The Americans 
immediately felt themselves to be in extreme 
danger. * * * At four o'clock in the after- 
noon the Americans for the first time became 
aware of the taking of Vera Cruz. They 



82 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 

learned this through posters put out by the 
Mexican authorities saying that the American 
invader had come, and had landed at Vera 
Cruz, and calling on all patriotic Mexicans to 
rally for the defense of the city. ^ ^ ^ 

The American consul had not been notified 
of the taking of Vera Cruz and was not in 
communication with our battleships, which 
were now located nine miles away in the gulf. 
At four-thirty mobs began to form, incited by 
speeches made by leading Mexican lawyers and 
doctors. They were incited to kill all Ameri- 
cans and to tear down the American flags. 
These mobs kept increasing in size, and three 
different attacks were made on some buildings 
occupied by Americans. A hundred and fifty 
American men, women and children were 
guarded at the Southern Hotel. Determined 
efforts were made to batter down the doors of 
the hotel. It was shot into, windows were 
broken, and no relief was given until the Ger- 
man commamder of the German gunboat Dres- 
den sent word to General Zaragosa, of the 
Federal forces, ordering him to disperse the 
mob, and if it was not done he would land Ger- 
man marines. This German commander sent 
two of his ofiicers to the Southern Hotel and 
to other places to take the American women 



CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 83 

and children to his boats. This was about two 
o'clock in the morning of April 22nd. This 
was done voluntarily on the part of the Ger- 
man commander without any communication 
whatever from the American fleet. Earlier in 
the evening the Consulate tried to get into 
communication with Admiral Mayo by wire- 
less from the English boat, but the English 
commander refused the request, stating that 
Mexico and the United States were at war and 
England was neutral. * * * During April 
22nd and 23rd over two thousand five hundred 
Americans were taken out of Tampico by boats 
flying the German and English flags and in 
charge of German and English oflicers. The 
English oflicer on one of the boats stated to 
the Americans in a speech that it was not his 
duty to do this, but that he did so in as much as 
our own country had deserted us and humanity 
demanded that he should take care of us. * * * 
The feeling of every American coming from 
Tampico is that he was deserted by his coun- 
try. He knew that he was in no danger as long 
as the quarrel was between the Mexicans, but 
after the United States landed at Vera Cruz 
the hatred of the Federals against all Ameri- 
cans became intense, and the protection was 
removed from us at a time when it was at its 
height without any notice to us." 



84 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 

In Volumn 51, part 8, of the Congressional 
Record of the 63d Congress, 2d session, on 
page 8132, there is a statement by three hun- 
dred and seventy-two of the Tampico refugees 
in regard to the same infamous desertion of 
American citizens by the Wilson administra- 
tion, which in substance is the same as that 
given above. 



A NATION'S DUTY. 

William Lemke 

A nation owes the same duty to its citizens 
that a father owes to his children. It is just as 
much the duty of a nation to protect its citizens 
from insult, injury and destruction w^herever 
they may be, as long as they have a right to 
be there, as it is for a father to protect his chil- 
dren from insult, injury and destruction 
wherever they may be, as long as they have a 
right to be there. I am willing to defend my 
nation — I am willing to lay down my life in 
defense of the stars and stripes, but I shall ex- 
pect that in return for this devotion that that 
nation and that flag will protect me and my 
children wherever we may be, as long as we 
have a right to be there. The nation that does 
not protect its protectors cannot long endure. 
No nation on earth is great enough to ignore 
the appeals for help of its citizens whether at 
home or abroad. As there are times when an 
individual must be firm, or even fight, to pre- 
serve his manhood, so there are times when a 
nation must be firm, or even fight, to preserve 
its nationalism. 

The reason for all organized government 
and taxation is that, as a group, people are 



86 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 

more powerful and have more protection, than 
as individuals. This is true as long as those 
in charge of a government perform their sacred 
duty and impartially protect the lives and 
property of all of its citizens wherever they 
may be. Patriotism is the feeling that you are 
somebody. It is the feeling that you belong to 
a nation that is not only powerful, but that is 
interested in your welfare. The contract be- 
tween the individual and his nation is recip- 
rocal. He tacitly agrees to protect the nation 
in time of danger even unto death, and the 
nation tacitly agrees to protect him in his life 
and property wherever he may be. This is the 
compact between the nation and the individual. 
None but a coward will deny it. Without this 
feeling of security and reciprocity, there can 
be no true patriotism on the part of the in- 
dividual — there is no nationalism. 

The Americans in Mexico had a right to 
be there. They had violated no law. They 
had been invited by the Mexican government 
and had been promised the most absolute pro- 
tection. They had been advised by William 
Jennings Bryan to go into Mexico under the 
Diaz administration, invest their capital, and 
seek work there. 

The vast majority of Americans in Mexico 
are of the middle class — they belong to the 



CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 87 

same sturdy class that settled in Texas. They 
are the forerunners of civilization. They are, 
as ex-President De la Bara of Mexico has so 
ably said, the educators and civilizers of 
Mexico. Shame on the cowards at Wash- 
ington and elsewhere that would brand 
these sturdy and hardy people as exploiters 
and desert them. They are in Mexico to make 
their homes, and to assist in the onward march 
of civilization of Latin-America. 

If Great Britain had followed President Wil- 
son's Mexican policy, then our forefathers 
would have been told to leave this continent 
when the Indians became hostile. If Presi- 
dent Madison had followed the Wilson Mex- 
ican policy, then the Americans would have 
been requested to stay off the seas in 1812. 
If the Wilson Mexican policy had been fol- 
lowed, then Texas, New Mexico, California 
and Arizona would not be a part of the United 
States today. If this same policy had been 
followed, then the man who said, "If anyone 
hauls down the American flag, shoot him on 
the spot,'' would perhaps have been jailed or 
reprimanded — and the man who said, "Mil- 
lions for defense, but not one cent for tribute," 
would perhaps have been compelled to revise 
his statement to, "Millions for tribute, but not 



88 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 

one cent for defense," or else he would have 
been discharged, and all the force of the ad- 
ministration brought to bear to discredit and 
dishonor him, as was done with Ambassador 
Wilson. 



WE APPEAL TO THE PRESIDENT. 

By Col. George Harvey. 

"The large thing to do is the only thing we 
can afford to do — a voluntary withdrawal from 
a position everywhere questioned and misun- 
derstood. We ought to reverse our action 
without raising the question whether we were 
right or wrong, and so once more deserve our 
reputation for generosity and the redemption 
of every obligation without quibble or hesita- 
tion.'' 

Those words, Mr. President, spoken by you 
as the head of the nation to the Congress of the 
United States upon the first day of your second 
year in office were more than worthy, more 
than courageous; they were noble. They 
breathed the sense of national honor; they 
were shot through with patriotic feeling; they 
evinced the power of personal greatness to ac- 
knowledge and repair a fault. And they will 
serve the purpose for which they were uttered 
— never fear! 

Pending the accomplishment of that great 
triumph which is to be yours, may we not ask 
you to perform the more pressing duty of turn- 
ing your eyes upon the stricken people of 



90 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 

bleeding Mexico, and consider — consider in 
candor and with deep solicitude which we 
know you feel — whether you may not apply 
those words to them. Is not our attitude to- 
ward them also "everywhere questioned and 
misunderstood"? We think and presently shall 
try to convince your mind that it is. If we 
shall succeed in that endeavor, is not "the large 
thing to do the only thing we can afford to do" 
— a reversal of our action "without raising the 
question whether we were right or wrong, and 
so once more deserve our reputation for gener- 
osity and the redemption of every obligation 
without quibble or hesitation"? 

Four months have elapsed since we raised 
the questions: 

What legal or moral right has a President 
of the United States to say who shall or shall 
not be President of Mexico? and 

Did not President Wilson imbed himself in 
a practically inextricable position when he de- 
manded the retirement of Huerta? and the 
only answers forthcoming are to be found in 
a consensus of the world's opinion and in a 
hopelessly tangled diplomatic situation sur- 
charged with peril. But no ! That is not strict- 
ly accurate. You answered the first question, 
Mr. President, when you recognized the Hu- 
erta of Peru, and you answered the second 



CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 91 

when you urged so impressively upon the Con- 
gress, as a primary reason for repudiating a 
pledge of your own party platform the neces- 
sity of mollifying foreign powers. * * * 

Never before to our knowledge, while their 
countries were at peace and resolved to con- 
tinue in amicable relationship, has one Presi- 
dent declared war upon another President. Yet 
that is what you did without a quiver of hesita- 
tion. And you did not stop there. You cer- 
tainly struck deep and hard in those days early 
in November when the following declaration 
was served upon Huerta as coming from the 
President of the United States : * * * 

That unless Huerta, voluntarily and on his 
own initiative, retires at once from power and 
abandons every idea of controlling the organ- 
ization of the government and the conduct of 
negotiations, the First Magistrate will find 
himself under the necessity of intervening by 
means of an ultimatum, and if this is not ac- 
cepted he will be obliged to propose to the Con- 
gress of his country the adoption of practical 
measures of a most serious nature. * * * 

And when the old Indian coolly ignored this 
demand you did not shrink from inviting the 
criticism of your own countrymen by lifting 
the embargo upon guns which, like those in the 
Philippines, may at no distant day be turned 



92 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 

upon our own soldiers. No, Mr. President, it 
is not from lack of energy or resolution that 
your attempt to apply political eugenics to 
Mexico in a schoolmasterful way has failed. It 
is from the fatal defect within the policy itself 
— the futile threat which, as we declared in 
November, "instead of eliminating Huerta 
from power, riveted him in his place, there to 
remain, in all probability, until he shall be ex- 
pelled by force (of arms." This judgment, 
based upon certain logic, has now found gen- 
eral acceptance, and it is to that most impor- 
tant fact, Mr. President, that we would direct 
your attention. 

No writer has made it so clear as you that 
"the only force'' that can control a President 
in shaping his course with respect to large mat- 
ters of public policy is "the force of public 
opinion." But public opinion is no less subject 
to change than individual judgment and, if it 
is to be accepted as a true guide, it must be ex- 
amined and interpreted at frequent intervals. 
When, in November, we urged upon you man- 
ful reversal of a policy which we then believed 
to be and which has since proved to have been 
untenable, we did not assume to reflect the 
common view. We could not but feel that 
much of the seeming approval was no more 
than natural and praiseworthy restraint; but 



CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 93 

there were few evidences to that effect, and 
you were quite justified in assuming that your 
attitude had won general commendation. The 
newspaper press in particular was notably in- 
sistent and steadfast in support of your deter- 
mination to drive Huerta from his position of 
authority. But is it so now? Let us mark the 
indications afforded by our leading journals. 

* jjs :Jc 

The extraordinary character of this galaxy 
of editorial and individual pronounce- 
ments is its unanimity. There may have ap- 
peared somewhere a word of approval of 
"watchful waiting" since the embargo was 
lifted, but if so, despite our painstaking read- 
ing of many American newspapers, we have 
not seen it — not one word. ^ * * 

You spoke, Mr. President, in your latest 
message, of the difficulties which you are now 
experiencing in dealing with foreign govern- 
ments, especially with respect to "matters of 
even greater delicacy and nearer consequence" 
than the canal-tolls dispute, and you pleaded 
with the Congress to empower you to adopt 
conciliatory measures. It is clear, therefore, 
that you attach particular importance to for- 
eign public opinion at this crucial time. What, 
then, is the consensus of that judgment upon 
your Mexican policy? 



94 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 

The most consistent friends of America 
among the public journals of England are The 
London "Times" and the "Spectator." Both 
have deplored from the beginning your refusal 
to recognize the de facto government. While 
hoping for the best, the "Times" still cannot 
escape the conclusion that you have "assumed 
responsibilties that may well lead to armed 
intervention." >k * ^k 

The 'Conservative "Morning Post" pronoun- 
ces your position "absolutely unintelligible" 
and possessing "all the appearance of encour- 
agement to anarchy, civil war, and murder of 
foreign residents in Mexico." 

What to do? Why, Mr. President, there is 
but one thing to do. There never has been 
but one thing to do. That is to put under your 
feet the solid precedent that was established by 
this nation at the beginning of its career and 
that has been heeded by all other powers in 
this particular instance: Extend to the de facto 
government of Mexico official recognition. We 
pass no criticism upon your refusal to take this 
logical and sensible action originally. You 
erred, of course, as all the world now con- 
cludes, and as you yourself confessed when you 
acknowledged the validity of the "usurping" 
governments of Peru and Haiti ; but it was an 
excusable, possibly even a justifiable, error be- 
cause it sprang from the best of intentions. 



CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 95 

What we do ask is that you do not persist in 
a course which leads straightway to the un- 
doing of all your good works, through the cer- 
tain defeat of your party and the execration 
that just as surely will be visited upon yourself 
if, as a consequence of sheer obduracy, this 
country shall be dragged into a hateful war. 
It may or may not be a correct assumption that 
Huerta, unhampered, could have pacified his 
country, but there is and can be absolutely no 
question that you deprived him of the means 
of effective striving. 

Confronted at the outset by a hostile Con- 
gress such as he well knew had achieved the 
downfall of Madero, surrounded by a cabinet 
of intriguers, refused recognition by the 
United States, branded rightfully or wrong- 
fully, but without adduced evidence, as an ac- 
cessory to assassination, deprived of the oppor- 
tunity to borrow moneys through the desire of 
foreign governments to curry favor with the 
nation which is now more commonly than be- 
fore referred to throughout Latin America as 
"the big bully," cajoled, threatened, cut off 
from aid wherever possible, while simultane- 
ously the hordes of opposing bandits and des- 
peradoes were being supplied, furtively at first 
and then openly, with arms and ammunition, 
and now — at the end of thirteen months — he is 



96 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 

conceded to be more strongly intrenched than 
ever! It is an amazing personal record, Mr. 
President, worthy surely of admiration, and 
remarkable especially for the consistent dig- 
nity, courtesy, and consideration exhibited by 
the old Indian himself in his dealings with an 
administration which has been— shall we 
frankly admit? — not invariably tactful and per- 
haps upon occasion slightly dictatorial. 

It is not too late. It is never too late to do 
the right thing. Moreover, the change in con- 
ditions affords you full warrant for reversing 
your position. While you had faith in the sin- 
cerity and high purpose of the rebel leaders, 
there appeared at least a semblance of reason 
for taking their part, but now that they have 
dropped the mask and stand revealed in their 
true light as murdering marauders, their last 
claim upon your consideration has disap- 
peared. 

You gave them their chance, at great risk to 
your own reputation, when you opened the 
doors for the delivery of arms, and they have 
shown their appreciation by ignoring your 
wishes, flouting your authority, and making 
you appear before the world as a virtual ally of 
a dastardly bandit. While Huerta has been 
earning your respect. Villa has been abusing 
your confidence. Clearly, the withdrawal of 



CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 97 

aid from the rebels now would be regarded 
everywhere not only as fully justified, but as a 
fitting response to the demands of humanity 
and civilization. 

But what, you may ask, is to be gained by 
recognizing Huerta at this late day? And we 
answer, everything. He may not be able under 
any circumstances to pacify Mexico, but all 
there whose lives and properties are at stake 
agree that he is rightfully, or wrongfully, Mex- 
ico's only hope. He is ours, too, and yours, be- 
cause he has come to be the only force capable 
of maintaining order and so possibly of avert- 
ing the dreaded intervention which continu- 
ance of the existing chaos is certain in time to 
produce. Practicability, no less than theory 
and tradition, calls for upholding of the de 
facto government. 

There are other reasons, Mr. President, 
more personal to yourself. You have no base 
now from which to act; no avenue through 
which to communicate; no way of meeting 
the just demands of foreign powers except, as 
in the case of England, by proffering special 
favors. And you are under suspicion. The 
mere fact that your policy is "unintelligible" 
has given rise to a growing conviction, espe- 
cially in South America, as evidenced above, 
that it is insincere and is deliberately designed 



98 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 

to engender war and conquest. You no longer 
have at your back the mighty force of public 
opinion, as we have shown. 

Abroad, as you must realize, the common at- 
titude toward your watchful waiting is quite 
frankly contemptuous; at home it is one of 
grave doubt and grave anxiety. To speak 
plainly, Mr. President, the feeling is growing 
stronger daily that your persistence in a course 
which in common with everybody else you 
must know to be wrong, is attributable to no 
kind of reasoning whatsoever, but to your own 
stubborn pride. For your own sake, then, if 
for no other cause, it is of the utmost impor- 
tance that, if there must be war, it shall come 
as an inevitable consequence, as demonstrably 
unpreventable by any conceivable means and in 
strict conformity with the customs and prece- 
dents fixed by international usage. 

Is it not clear, Mr. President, that this condi- 
tion can never be realized until the only gov- 
ernment, however discreditable, that does exist 
and the only really strong man, however dis- 
reputable, who has appeared, shall have been 
accorded the full opportunity which so many 
believe he could utilize even now with ulti- 
mate effectiveness? It is the only way, sir, 
the only Vv^ay out, the only way to save Mexico, 
to save your party, and to save yourself. It is. 



CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 99 

too, "the large thing to do," the "only thing" 
you "can afford to do" to escape from a posi- 
tion "everywhere questioned and misunder- 
stood." 

We implore you, Mr. President, to take to 
heart your own splendid words, "We ought to 
reverse our action without raising the question 
whether we were right or wrong," and then do 
it "without quibble or hesitation" and win for 
your country just honor and for yourself the 
fine renown which the world invariably ac- 
cords a noble act nobly done. 



THE PRESIDENT'S INDIANAPOLIS 
SPEECH. 

William Lemke 

In his Indianapolis speech, the President 
said: "Have not the European nations taken 
as long as they wanted, and spilled as much 
blood as they pleased in settling their affairs, 
and shall we deny that right to Mexico, be- 
cause she is weak? No, I say." These words 
had more properly come from the lips of Villa 
or Zapata, for the success of whose murderous 
career the President is responsible. Horrible 
as these words are, they fail to describe the 
sea of blood that the President has caused to 
flow in Mexico by encouraging and materially 
assisting these monsters. No, the President 
will not be permitted to escape his responsibil- 
ity by subterfuge. He did interfere in Mexico, 
and he interfered on the side of crime. Did 
he not destroy the Mexican government? Did 
he not land the United States marines at Vera 
Cruz for the express purpose of ousting 
Huerta? Did he not raise the embargo on 
arms so that Villa and Zapata could get more 
arms and ammunition to slaughter the inno- 
cent and outrage women? Did he not sup- 
press the truth in regard to the crimes of these 



CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 101 

criminals, and shelter them in every way pos- 
sible? It has even been said that he got his 
Secretary of State to delegate a subordinate 
to write a laudatory biography of the mur- 
derer, Villa, and was only stopped from ac- 
complishing his purpose by Senator Lodge 
reading the crimson career of Villa into the 
Congressional Record. "False face must hide 
what the false heart doth know." "Macbeth 
shall sleep no more." "Go get some water and 
wash this filthy 'Villa' from your hands." 

President Wilson said that the Mexicans 
must be allowed to spill as much blood as they 
please, and I suppose that he would also say 
that they must be allowed to outrage as many 
women as they please. For justification of this 
doctrine he refers us back to ancient and me- 
dieval Europe. He might with equal propriety 
have referred us back to the cave man, or to 
some cannibal tribe. 

I had believed that these horrors were part 
of the distant and barbarous past, until I saw 
them reenacted, with the President's assist- 
ance, in Mexico. I believed, and still believe, 
that it is part of civilization to prevent the re- 
currence of these awful things. I deny that 
the President, in this speech, voices the senti- 
ment of the American people. According to 



102 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 

the President, I should be allowed to spill the 
blood of my brother, if it pleased me, because 
in the remote and hazy past, Cain arose and 
slew his brother, Abel. 

The President said further : "So that when 
some great dailies, not very far from where I 
am temporarily residing, thundered with rising 
scorn at watchful waiting, Woodrow sat back 
in his chair and chuckled, knowing that he 
laughs best who laughs last/' So while out of 
Mexico there came gruesome pictures of hu- 
man beings chained together in groups, soaked 
in oil and burned to death, "Woodrow sat back 
in his chair and chuckled." While Benton, 
Bach and hundreds of others were being mur- 
dered, "Woodrow sat back in his chair and 
chuckled." While, Durango, a city of seventy- 
five thousand, was being drenched in blood by 
the Villa hordes, and hundreds of women were 
ravished, while scores committed suicide to 
avoid a worse fate, "Woodrow sat back in his 
chair and chuckled, knowing that he laughs 
best who laughs last." 

Nero fiddled, and perhaps "chuckled," while 
Rome was burning, but that was no consola- 
tion to the victims of his conflagration. No, 
Woodrow, it was not a question with the inno- 
cent victims of your particular kind of "watch- 



CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 103 

ful waiting" as to who laughs first or last, or 
yet, as to who laughs best. Many of these are 
dead, while what is worse, others bear upon 
their brow the stigma of shame — their lives 
and their virtue, unwillingly and against their 
consent, sacrificed upon the Villa-Zapata altar 
of cruelty, greed and lust. "All great Nep- 
tune's ocean" cannot wash away the blood and 
dishonor that your allies. Villa and Zapata 
and their followers, have placed upon your 
policy of "watchful waiting." This is no 
chuckling matter. 

The President talks of himself in the third 
person — "Woodrow sat back in his chair and 
chuckled." What would we have thought of 
President Lincoln, if during the civil war, he 
had said, "Abraham sat back in his chair and 
chuckled." Some time ago the President in- 
formed us that he had a "one track mind," and 
I presume that his mind runs back on one track 
to the days of Caesar, when the innocent and 
defenseless were made prisoners and slaugh- 
tered, and their women outraged and carried 
away as legitimate prize. "Have not the Euro- 
pean nations taken as long as they wanted, 
and spilled as much blood as they pleased in 
settling their affairs, and shall we deny that 
right to Mexico, because she is weak? No, I 



104 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 

say." In the face of this remarkable new doc- 
trine of the President, what has become of the 
commandment, "Thou shalt not kill/' 

"Against this doctrine I raise my voice in 
protest before the tribunal of universal jus- 
tice." I appeal from the President, the ser- 
vant, to the American people, his master, and 
demand punishment for the unspeakable out- 
rages perpetrated against thirty thousand 
Americans, the looting of their homes and the 
profanation of their bodies. I know that there 
is enough chivalry and manhood left in Amer- 
ica, regardless of the President, to uphold wo- 
manhood and to rescue her from the degrada- 
tion and desecration to which she has been 
subjected in Mexico. 

If the President's home had been looted by 
Villa or Zapata, with torch and dagger in hand, 
and then destroyed — if he had been tortured 
and mutilated, and then in his dying condition 
compelled to witness the outraging of his 
daughters, then he could perhaps realize what 
we thirty thousand Americans, nearly all of 
whom have been robbed, many of whom have 
had some friend or relative murdered, tortured, 
mutilated or outraged, think of him when he 
says that those demons must be allowed to spill 
as much blood as they please. We have a right 



CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 105 

to interpret the President's words in the light 
of conditions as they exist, and as he knows 
them to exist. 

Woodrow ! "How much longer are you go- 
ing to abuse our patience ?'' Do you know that 
in the words of the immortal Lincoln, "You 
can fool all of the people some of the time, and 
some of the people all of the time, but you can- 
not fool all of the people all of the time." 
Whether you wish it or not, your name will go 
down into Mexican history linked forever with 
that of Villa — Wilson and Villa, one and in- 
separable, known to fame or infamy to all the 
ages yet to come. 



AFFAIRS IN MEXICO. 

By Senator William Alden Smith 

***From a somewhat intimate knowledge of 
the historical facts and upon my responsibility 
as a Senator I say that the revolution against 
Diaz was planned and perfected and stimulated 
and encouraged upon the soil of the United 
States. It is a notorious fact that three men in 
a hotel in the city of New York held in the hol- 
low of their hands the fate of Mexico while 
they were attempting to adjust between them- 
selves the railroad and the oil interests of that 
country. 

While under oath, Mr. Sherburne G. Hop- 
kins, of Washington, told a committee of the 
Senate that he was the counsel of the Maderos, 
or of the Madero revolution, and at the same 
identical moment admitted that he held a re- 
tainer as the counsel of a great American oil 
company. 

After President Diaz was put out of the 
capitol of Mexico, and Francisco Madero was 
put in, the first money paid out of the Mexican 
treasury was fifty thousand dollars to this 
Washington lawyer for services to the revolu- 
tionary junta in this capital. * * * 



CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 107 

How have we acted with reference to our 
neighbor on the south? Does anybody ques- 
tion that the loan negotiated by the Mexican 
government in Europe was defeated by our 
Government? Let my associates upon the 
Committee on Foreign Relations say. We 
have sent emissaries directly to those in rebel- 
lion against the de facto government of Mex- 
ico ; we have dealt directly with the revolution- 
ists or constitutionalists in Mexico in open re- 
bellion against President Huerta. * * * 

Why was the embargo raised upon the 
exportation of arms from America, so that 
banditti and revolutionists might obtain their 
powder and their munitions with less difficulty 
from our own people? ^ * * I have 
thought that the least respectable thing that 
our Government could do would be to refrain 
from encouraging banditti and revolution in a 
friendly state. * * * 

I assert, without any hesitation whatever, 
that the very same element in Mexico which 
banded together to overthrow the government 
of President Diaz, which instigated and fur- 
nished the means and much of the munitions 
for President Madero's successful revolution, 
are the men who have engineered the Carranza 
and Villa movement. Their headquarters are 
in the city of Washington; their offices are in 



108 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 

the Hibbs building. ^ ^ ^ The following 
were here in person during the summer: Felix 
Sommerfield, the head of the secret service 
corps, operating with Consul Llorente along 
the Mexican border, who claimed that there 
was no limit to the expenditures he had a right 
to make; and it was found, without any diffi- 
culty whatever, that Mr. Llorente, consul, had 
over two million dollars to his credit in the 
city of El Paso alone with which he was to 
buy arms and ammunition and create propa- 
ganda in favor of his faction of the Mexican 
people; Mrs. Francisco Madero; the Madero 
brothers coming and going; Manuel Perez Ro- 
mero, broker of Mrs. Madero, Washington rep- 
resentative of the rebels, their minister of 
finance; while Mrs. Madero's brother was busy 
through the entire summer fulminating 
against the government of Mexico, safely and 
usually in the District of Columbia. * >k * 
When the Mexican revolution, headed by 
Francisco I. Madero against President Diaz, 
broke out, the Eagle Oil Company, which in- 
cludes the Aguila Oil Company, dealing in the 
refined products of oil, and the Pearson oil con- 
cessions belonging to Lord Cowdray, of Eng- 
land, producing crude oil, were doing their 
business in sharp rivalry with the Waters- 
Pierce Oil Company. Mr. Hopkins says they 



CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 109 

were active competitors. At that time the 
controlling interest and stock of the Waters- 
Pierce Oil Company was owned by the Stan- 
dard Oil Company. According to the witness, 
Mr. Henry Clay Pierce, president of the 
Waters-Pierce Company, "conceived it to be 
imminently proper that the public should un- 
derstand how Lord Cowdray got these conces- 
sions and how he exercised the control which 
he had over the Mexican government," and 
witness says that he was employed by Mr. 
Pierce for that purpose. * * * 

Mr. Hopkins says that his employment took 
place in the city of Mexico. He further says 
that he was consulted with a view to exposing 
the graft by means of which Lord Cowdray 
had attained the degree of influence which he 
wielded with the Diaz administration. He 
says also that he was at that time the adviser 
of the Madero revolutionary party in Wash- 
ington and gave it his advice as to the best 
manner of deposing the Diaz government; that 
he was employed directly by Gustavo Madero 
and others, and that he ''made it as hot as he 
could for Lord Cowdray and the Eagle Oil 
Company." He says he was especially called 
upon to advise Mr. Madero regarding railroad 
matters, and, in fact, says, ''I was the legal ad- 
viser of the revolutionary party in Washing- 



no CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 

ton from the beginning until the end," employ- 
ing men for work in the secret service in the 
United States and doing everything to assist 
in creating public opinion in the revolution 
against President Diaz; and that he was called 
to Mexico immediately after the fall of Juarez 
by President Madero and his brother, Gustavo 
Madero, for the purpose of adjusting certain 
large outstanding accounts for secret service 
in the United States whom witness had em- 
ployed. 

During this visit to Mexico, Gustavo Ma- 
dero was paid six hundred thousand dollars, 
Mexican, out of the treasury of that govern- 
ment for revolutionary expenses, and this 
money was carried by Madero to the hotel 
where Hopkins was stopping and deposited in 
the International Banking Corporation, hav- 
ing a branch in Washington and various for- 
eign countries, with which Hopkins did busi- 
ness, and which he sometimes represented. Of 
this fund Mr. Hopkins was paid fifty thousand 
dollars in gold for his service in promoting 
the revolutionary cause in Mexico. * * * 

Hopkins says that he was interested in the 
railway aspect of that situation. * * * 
That he and Gustavo Madero thought that the 
old directors should be gotten rid of as expedi- 
tiously as possible. ^ * * He says that 



CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 111 

the course outlined with reference to these 
railroads by Gustavo Madero and himself was 
known to Henry Clay Pierce, who "had a very 
vital interest in the management of the Na- 
tional Railways, and was both a bondholder 
and stockholder." * ♦ He Hopkins first be- 
came interested in changing the directory of 
those roads through Gustavo Madero about 
the time of the revolution, and the matter was 
discussed at length by Madero and Hopkins in 
his office in Washington. * * >k 

He also says that the consolidation of the 
Mexican Central and the Mexican Railways 
was made possible through Henry Clay Pierce, 
and admits that when Gustavo Madero took 
up the work of getting rid of the directory of 
the Mexican Railways that the railways were 
prospering. * * >{c -pj^^^ everybody con- 
nected with the revolutionary movement 
against Diaz shared the view of Gustavo Ma- 
dero as to the desirability of getting control 
of these railways. Hopkins admits that he 
was acting both for Pierce and Madero, who 
had ideas in common. That he went down to 
Mexico to bring these matters to the attention 
of the Mexican people and with a view to 
bringing about just what has taken place. 
Hopkins says that he was very familiar with 
the whole affair; that he was in Washington 



112 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 

when the battle of Juarez occurred, and that 
just prior to the battle of Juarez he was in con- 
ference in New York with the father of the 
late President Madero, Mr. Limantour, the 
Minister of Finance of Mexico, also a director 
in the Mexican national railways, and Dr. 
Francisco Vasquez Gomez at the Hotel Astor. 
That the attack upon Juarez was delayed pend- 
ing this conference, "where there were negoti- 
ations looking to a compromise." 

Why, Mr. President, is it conceivable that 
three men meeting in the Hotel Astor in New 
York should hold in the hollow of their hands 
the fate of seventeen million people at the 
south of us? Is it conceivable that all of this 
dire calamity, the loss of life, the murder, the 
outrages committed upon women and girls, 
the destruction of millions of dollars' worth of 
property, could all have been avoided if these 
three archconspirators had been able to agree 
upon a division of the railroad and the oil inter- 
ests of Mexico? Yet that is what this man 
says under oath. * * * 

Hopkins says that he has "had a good deal 
to do with revolutions, also in maintaining 
constituted government." He says he knew 
that President Zelaya was going to be put out 
of the presidency of Nicaragua some time be- 
fore it happened. That he imparted his infor- 



CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 113 

mation to certain people in Europe, notably 
the French banker, whom he had approached 
for a loan in behalf of the Mexican revolution. 
He said he knew exactly what was going to 
happen. When asked if that information came 
directly from our Government he said: "I 
should not say directly from our Government; 
I knew what was going to happen before our 
Government did, and stopped Zelaya's loan 
from going through." 

You cannot dismiss with a wave of the hand 
this man who can stop a loan from a European 
banking house to a government in Central 
America. You cannot dismiss with a wave of 
the hand a man whose labors were sufficient 
to call for a personal appropriation out of the 
treasury of Mexico amounting to fifty thou- 
sand dollars. This man is an acknowledged 
and professional revolutionary authority; has 
been close to the department of state, and 
wields a powerful influence over the affairs of 
Central America. His hand can be seen in 
every vexatious movement involving the insta- 
bility of governments at the south of us, and 
in my opinion he and his associates are a 
menace to organized society. * * * 

Mr. President, Senators may say, "Why 
was not this matter presented to the Senate 
before?" That is a fair question. When we 



114 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 

returned to Washington after our labors we 
found our associates scattered from a long and 
laborious session of the Senate. We were un- 
able to get our committee together. Unfor- 
tunately, several of the actors in this horrible 
drama were killed. Your committee was 
squarely upon the trail of Gustavo Madero and 
the vice president of that republic, Mr. Suarez, 
when their lives were snuffed out. The change 
of administration occurred, and the complex- 
ion of the Committee on Foreign Relations 
changed; a new situation arose. We had no 
power to go on. We could not complete our 
work. All we could do was to report the prog- 
ress we had made; and we laid upon the desk 
of every Senator the testimony we had taken. 
Talk about murders of Americans in Mex- 
ico! I have talked personally with several of 
the unfortunate children whose fathers were 
murdered on Mexican soil. I know of my own 
knowledge of many instances of this charac- 
ter. The condition of affairs in Mexico is most 
deplorable. 



The reader will note from the above extracts 
from Senator Smithes speech, that the revolu- 
tions in Mexico have undoubtedly been insti- 
gated and financed by American interests and 
especially by American oil interests. It may 



CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 115 

have been permissible for our administration 
to assist an American oil company to oust an 
English oil company in Mexico, but when it 
became necessary in order to accomplish this, 
to arm and assist such men as Villa in murder- 
ing, robbing or ruining some thirty thousand 
American citizens, and to cause a sea of blood 
to flow in Mexico generally, the administration 
should have halted — the price was too high. 



OIL AGAIN. 

By Major Cassius E. Gillette 

The fundamental cause of these awful condi- 
tions lie primarily with Madero, a half-baked 
devotee of spiritualism, who possibly seriously 
put forth the old propaganda of "free land" 
and a general democracy, with which fake 
shibboleth at least a hundred rebellions have 
been started in Mexico between the overthrow 
of Spain, in 1821, and the ascendance of Diaz, 
in 1876. 

The testimony of Sherburne G. Hopkins 
given before the sub-committee of the Senate 
Committee on Foreign Relations, under oath, 
suggests a possible, and even probable, finan- 
cial backing of Madero, such as may ulti- 
mately prove that the poor fellow was a mere 
catspaw, a pawn sacrificed to the greed of big 
American oil interests. 

Mr. Hopkins admitted under oath that he 
was the legal representative of Madero from 
the start; that he now represents the present 
constitutionalists, and that he has been such 
representative continuously. He also admit- 
ted that he had been a legal representative 
during at least part of the period since the Ma- 



CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 117 

dero outbreak, of Henry Clay Pierce, the head 
of the Waters-Pierce Oil Company, presumed 
to be one of the tentacles of Standard Oil. 

There certainly has been an intense fight in 
Mexico for years between the Waters-Pierce 
Company and the English Pearson Company 
of Lord Cowdray. Yet Standard Oil appears 
to own, through the Doheny interest, more oil 
and more capital invested than all the other 
interests in Mexico put together. The ques- 
tion then, is, Why is Standard Oil not engaged 
in this fight for the trade of Mexico, as are the 
Pierce interests and the Pearson interests? 
The only logical answer is that it owns either 
one or the other. 

Mr. Hopkins admitted on the stand that his 
services to Henry Clay Pierce were for the 
purpose of fighting Lord Cowdray in Mexico, 
and the only way Standard Oil or Mr. Pierce 
could reach him was to overthrow Diaz, the 
natural way to do which would be to finance 
Madero. 

That they did this financing is asserted by 
sworn testimony printed in the same report. 

Mr. Converse, an intelligent young Ameri- 
can who fought for Madero from the start, and 
was his intimate friend, when questioned 
under oath, said that Madero had personally 
told him several times that he got his money 



118 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 

from Standard Oil, and that Standard Oil 
would back him to the "last ditch/' the witness 
remarking that his memory was strengthened 
by Madero's use of the Americanism, "the last 
ditch/' He swore that Madero told him this 
several times, as also did Madero's staunch 
supporter and intimate friend, Braulio Her- 
nandez, and Madero's governor of the state 
of Chiluahua, Abraham Gonzalez. 

There is much testimony in the printed vol- 
ume to the same effect, yet our State Depart- 
ment a few weeks ago gave out that it had no 
information to connect Standard Oil with the 
financing of Madero. This report must cer- 
tainly be on file there. 

On the same day the Standard Oil of^cials 
stated that the company had not financed Ma- 
dero. They did not deny that Standard Oil 
money, however, had been used for the pur- 
pose. 

There is a pretty strong rumor that Madero 
got his original funds for the purpose by mort- 
gaging his Guayule rubber land to the Conti- 
nental Rubber Company, whose president is 
John D. Rockefeller, Jr. 

A somewhat curious coincidence is that the 
largest contributor to President Wilson's cam- 
paign fund, and apparently one of his closest 
advisers, is Cleveland H. Dodge, a director, I 



CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 119 

believe, in 'the Standard Oil National City 
Bank and a trustee of the Carnegie Peace 
Foundation, while the officials of his company 
in Arizona some months ago were under in- 
dictment for smuggling arms and ammunition 
to the Constitutionalists. 

In any event, Mr. Hopkins is admittedly the 
leader of the Constitutionalist representatives 
in Washington, and he is undoubtedly one of 
the most skillful press agents in the country. 
At times, from what appears to be his press 
agent work, he seems to have a remarkable 
knowledge of the inner workings of our State 
Department, and a most remarkable ability 
to get news telegrams started from out-of-the- 
way places in Mexico, a tremendous percent- 
age of which "news" is afterward contradicted. 

For example. General Villa, as is well 
known, can neither read nor write, and yet im- 
mediately after his recent murder of Benton, 
he gave out a statement involving an intimate 
knowledge of points of international law, with 
American and English precedents in the mat- 
ter, a knowledge of such things entirely be- 
yond the ken not only of Villa, but of any- 
body within one hundred miles of his head- 
quarters in Chihuahua, at the time he gave it 
out. * * * 



JOHN LIND. 

William Lemke 

John Lind, the Wilson spy, sat under the 
protection of the guns of a friendly nation at 
Vera Cruz and gave information to the rebels 
in arms against the Mexican government. 
What would Lincoln have done, if during our 
Civil war, England had sent a spy of the Lind 
type to New York to give military information 
to the South? He would have had him shot, 
and if President Huerta had done his full duty 
to Mexico, Lind would perhaps now be sleep- 
ing beneath seven feet of earth. He was not 
an official of the United States government, 
but a spy, who, according to correspondence 
made public in the New York Herald, was giv- 
ing information to the rebels and the Waters- 
Pierce Oil Company. Whatever may have 
been Mr. Lind's reputation, character and 
standing before he went to Mexico, there can 
be no question but that his actions at Vera 
Cruz, his misrepresentations, and the false 
statements he has made in public since his re- 
turn, are dishonorable. He had better take 
warning that "truth crushed to earth shall rise 
again." 



CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 121 

Senator Fall in a speech before the United 
States Senate said in substance: "The Presi- 
dent is not correctly informed. His personal 
representative, Mr. Lind, came back and wrote 
a history of Mexico by copying it from an en- 
cyclopedia, and I am informed that he told the 
President that if he would send the marines to 
Vera Cruz he could land there, take the post of- 
fice, the railroad yards, and the custom house 
without firing a shot; that there would be no 
resistance; that there would not be a drop of 
blood spilled; and that, if he held on, he could 
make Huerta get out of the country. I know 
that members of Congress have come to me 
seeking information concerning Mexico and 
made the statement as coming directly from 
Mr. Lind, that Pancho Villa was now studying 
metaphysics and reading several volumes of 
philosophy; that he really was educating him- 
self and was developing a great interest in 
deep subjects. I asked if Mr. Lind had said 
that he knew Villa, or had ever met him. They 
returned later and informed me that Lind ad- 
mitted that he had never been farther north 
than Tampico; that he had never met Villa 
in his life; that he did not know anything 
about him, but he did give the name of his in- 
formant, and that informant was a representa- 
tive of one of the greatest oil companies in the 
world." 



122 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 

John Lind's closest adviser in Mexico was 
Mr. Gaibraith, the able manager of the Waters- 
Pierce Oil Company. Mr. Lind never was 
within a thousand miles of Villa, and yet he 
had him reading philosophy, when it is uni- 
versally known that he can neither read nor 
write. A number of Americans invited Lind to 
visit his friend, the murderer, rapist and rob- 
ber, Villa, but Lind refused to leave the protec- 
tion of the Mexican government, and preferred 
to give his laudations at long distance. 

Mr. Lind also sang the praise of Zapata. He 
stated repeatedly that Zapata was the most 
consistent patriot in Mexico. It is true that 
Zapata is consistent in murder, rape and rob- 
bery. Is that what Mr. Lind is pleased to call 
consistent patriotism? 

The President sent John Lind to Mexico by 
stealth, without the knowledge, advice or con- 
sent of the United States Senate, although our 
constitution makes the Senate, together with 
the President, responsible for the conduct of 
our foreign affairs. If the President had ad- 
vised with the Senate, Mr. Lind would never 
have been sent to Mexico. He was ignorant 
of the Mexican language, and lacked physical 
and moral courage. Aside from his stop at 
Tampico and his cautious trip to Mexico City, 
and his hurried return to Vera Cruz, and a visit 



CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 123 

to a nearby ranch, his entire radius of knowl- 
edge and observation in Mexico was confined 
to the American Consulate and the Terminal 
Hotel at Vera Cruz, which were easily access- 
ible to the American gunboats. In some of his 
public utterances he boasts of having met thou- 
sands of Mexicans. Mr. Lind never met a 
thousand Mexicans in his life. He never ven- 
tured out or mingled with the public. His 
timid actions were the subject of general con- 
versation and ridicule by Americans and other 
foreigners as well as by the Mexicans in 
Mexico. 

The public was led to believe by President 
Wilson and the newspapers that Mr. Lind was 
reluctant to go to Mexico, and that he did so 
only as a public duty, and at a great personal 
sacrifice. The truth is that Mr. Lind wrote a 
letter from the city of Chicago to Secretary 
Bryan, demanding that he be appointed as 
Minister to Mexico, because of the work he 
had done for the Democratic party in Minne- 
sota. He was appointed as a result of that 
letter. Mr. Lind had no qualifications for this 
mission, except that he was friendly to the 
Waters-Pierce Oil Company, and the large 
lumber interests of St. Paul, both of which 
have interests in Mexico. These unquestion- 
ably would have been very much pleased if Mr. 



124 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 

Lind had succeeded in naming the President of 
Mexico. Lind did not go to Mexico to learn 
the true conditions. He went there rather 
as an attorney for interested parties. 

An old resident of Mexico has this to say: 
"A short time before my departure from Mex- 
ico, I was talking about the situation with an 
American Consul, whom I have known for 
many years. Suddenly the consul suggested 
that I go to see Lind. He said, looking rather 
worried. *You know Villa and what he is — 
won't you tell Lind.' I was somewhat sur- 
prised at the request, but after thinking that, 
being neither a Mexican nor an American, al- 
though educated in the United States, Lind 
might not consider me a biased party, I agreed. 

"The consul's request had naturally led me 
to believe that Lind favored Villa. I went to 
see him and before long I became convinced 
that Lind did not wish to hear what I had to 
say about Villa and moreover that he thought 
the latter was the only salvation for Mexico. 
I have lived in Mexico twenty years, as you 
know. I asked Lind if he had talked to hon- 
est, neutral Mexicans, to representative men 
who did not take part in the struggle and had 
no political ambition. Lind answered that he 
had. I inquired specifically, mentioning more 
than fifteen names, and in each case he an- 



CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 125 

swered, ^No, not that one.' I soon perceived 
that he had not talked to the men whose opin- 
ions and views were really worth while. 

"Then I made him an offer to put at his dis- 
posal my own house so that he could see the 
men whose names I had mentioned, without 
the fact becoming known to any one and I told 
him I would see personally these men and 
arrange for them to meet him. *Thank you/ 
— said Lind very indifferently, — 'sometime, 
perhaps, you may do that.' I left Lind con- 
vinced that his mind on the subject had been 
made up before he had gone to Mexico and 
that no one could change it and I said to my- 
self, Toor Mexico !' " 

I met Mr. Lind at Vera Cruz in March, 1914, 
and gave him some information in regard to 
Villa and Zapata. I presented to him a case 
where all the women of a village were held for 
ransom by the rebels with the threat that if 
their relatives failed to pay the ransom within 
thirty days they would be turned over to the 
soldiers. Lind's answer was that the Federals 
were just as bad. This answer I knew was not 
true. I soon discovered that Mr. Lind was not 
interested in knowing the real situation. I felt 
that he was representing some special inter- 
ests, and for that reason was a sympathizer 
of the rebels. In place of getting the truth, he 



126 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 

slandered and misrepresented the Mexican 
government. All the statements he made con- 
cerning this government, I knew at the time to 
be untrue. 

In one of Mr. Lind's notes to the Mexican 
government appears this passage: *'The 
President of the United States of America fur- 
ther authorizes me to say that if the de facto 
government of Mexico at once acts favorably 
upon the foregoing suggestions, then in that 
event the President will express to American 
bankers and their associates assurances that 
the Government of the United States of Amer- 
ica will look with favor upon the extension of 
an immediate loan sufficient in amount to meet 
the temporary requirements of the de facto 
Government of Mexico." That the Mexican 
Government recognized this as in the nature 
of a bribe for them to betray their country for 
the benefit of New York bankers, is plainly 
indicated by its reply: "Permit me, Mr. Confi- 
dential Agent, not to reply for the time being 
to the significant offer in which the Govern- 
ment of the United States of America insinu- 
ates that it will recommend to American bank- 
ers the immediate extension of a loan which 
will permit us, among other things, to cover 
the innumerable urgent expenses required by 
the progressive pacification of the country; for 



CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 127 

in the terms in which it is couched it appears 
more to be an attractive antecedent proposal to 
the end that, moved by petty interests, we 
should renounce a right which incontrovertibly 
upholds us at a period when the dignity of the 
nation is at stake. I believe that there are not 
loans enough to induce those charged by the 
law to maintain that dignity to permit it to be 
lessened." 

The American bankers, especially the 
Waters-Pierce Oil Company's bankers, would 
have welcomed an opportunity to make a loan 
to the Mexican government at the rate of ex- 
change then in force, with the assurance from 
President Wilson that he would back up this 
loan with the United States army. This would 
have trebled their money over night. The sug- 
gestion of this loan made by President Wilson 
and Mr. Lind after Mr. Wilson had established 
a financial blockade and forced all the foreign 
bankers to withdraw their aid from the Mexi- 
can government, may throw some light upon 
our administration's whole Mexican policy. 
The President seems to be thoroughly familiar 
with the power of money — banker's diplomacy 
— financial starvation. 

In conclusion we may ask, how much was 
Mr. Lind paid for his seven months' stay in 
Mexico? The President and his Secretary of 



128 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 

State have refused to inform the public of the 
amount. When Mr. Bryan was asked to ap- 
pear before the appropriation committee and 
inform them of th€ amount, he went on a Chau- 
tauqua tour. A subordinate appeared before 
that committee and informed them in sub- 
stance that it would not be compatible with 
public interest to disclose the amount, as it 
would create a public discussion at a time 
when the situation was delicate. We may 
safely presume that Lind did not sacrifice very 
much, and that the amount was large, other- 
wise there would have been no apprehension 
of a public discussion. 



GOVERNMENT BY HEADLINE. 

By Major Cassius £. Gillette 

So it comes about that any wealthy individ- 
ual or corporation can, by skillful press-agent 
work, mould public opinion on almost any 
subject without much regard to the true situa- 
tion. This is especially true if the matter con- 
cerns things with which few people are famil- 
iar. Publicity for the facts and arguments in 
favor of any propaganda can be purchased as 
readily as groceries, and the skillful publicity 
agent can so distribute the news that the un- 
wary headliner, who of necessity works in 
haste, will give undue prominence to almost 
any facts or ideas the press agent wishes. 
When the owners of the papers or those who 
manage its "policy" wish to develop public 
opinion along a particular line the possibilities 
are even more remarkable. * * 

Editors write glibly of the Huerta-Diaz con- 
spiracy against Madero. Curiously enough 
there was a conspiracy fully justified, to arrest 
him by a coup d'etat, but neither Felix Diaz 
nor General Huerta knew anything about it. 
Both were brought into the resulting fight 
later and on opposite sides. 



130 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 

From the time Madero started out on his 
career of colossal blunder, or colossal crime, 
he and his clique have maintained in the Hibbs 
building, Washington, a junta of Mexicans 
and press-agency of great ability and unlim- 
ited imagination, which has wholly misled 
American sentiment. 

That this misleading of public sentiment is 
at the behest of the Great American Oil mo- 
nopoly is strongly indicated. Whether the 
President was subconsciously moved by this 
probability to skip with abnormal alacrity to 
the leadership must be left to the reader's own 
conclusion. Unpopular, powerful interests 
fought in public may sometimes be secretly 
friendly to a public official who aids them "un- 
consciously" in matters treated altruistically. 

But the news of the day show the unfortu- 
nate plight in which the Wilson administra- 
tion has placed itself by acting suddenly on 
misinformation when it refused recognition to 
the Huerta government. This has driven the 
administration into the astounding position of 
encouraging, apparently with a view to recog- 
nition, the unspeakable Villa, whose recent 
statements and actions have satisfied the 
American people that he, personally, foully 
murdered William S. Benton, a very promi- 
nent subject of Great Britain. 



CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 131 

At the present time this headline principle is 
more than usually potent in national affairs. 
While Secretary Bryan pushes his own ideas 
with vigor, albeit most of those ideas seem 
based on gallery play, President Wilson 
works on a totally different plan. What his 
personal convictions really are, nobody knows. 
He has written profusely on almost every 
known subject and a co-ordination of what he 
has said at different times puts him not on two 
sides of every question, but generally on three 
or more, the net result being a sort of nebulous 
straddle where it generally takes an analytical 
astronomical observer to distinguish the neb- 
ula from the halo of glittering generalities 
that surrounds it. But a critical examination 
of his acts as an executive and verbiage with 
which he accompanies them will show that he 
never pushes his own ideas at all, but waits 
till he finds out what he thinks will "go" and 
then backs it to the limit, throwing consistency 
to the winds if necessary to land the proposi- 
tion on which he has embarked. Even if he 
mistakes public opinion, he never reverses the 
lever. These ideas explain all his palpably 
inconsistent actions, and no other explanation 
will cover them. 

A striking example of almost unbelievable 
press-agenting, which started the Presidency 



132 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 

marching with set visage in the wrong di- 
rection, is the present awful struggle in 
Mexico. 

From 1821 down to Diaz's time in 1876, the 
country was always in a state of semi-anarchy, 
rebellion, and destruction; any renegade man 
of wealth could start an uprising by simply 
promising free land to the peons, which would 
give the squaws a better chance to work. Hun- 
dreds of such rebellions were started on this 
same pretext which were never carried out. 
The mentally unbalanced Madero lacked even 
the virtue of originality when he worked the 
time-honored scheme, and he made only one 
feeble attempt to carry it out. This was made 
through his brother Gustavo, who bought a 
large hacienda down in Morelos at twelve dol- 
lars an hectara and sold it to his brother's 
Government at thirty-six dollars for issue to 
the peons. The old fake had worked because 
in the long period of peace which Diaz started 
before Madero was born, people had forgotten 
the former history and Madero's revival of it 
fired a few minds beyond the peons. 

Madero made no effective step to stop the 
conflagration he had begun. Every bandit 
he started on the warpath, and that means 
ninety per cent of his followers, stayed right 
on in "rebellion" against Madero and on down 
to the present moment. 



CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 133 

That General Huerta is an honest old sol- 
dier, and not an assassin, traitor, bandit or 
usurper in any sense of those words, is easily 
demonstrated. I have challenged all comers 
to a public debate on that subject and I can 
get no takers. 



LIND FOR BLOODSHED AND SUBTER- 
FUGE. 

The following communications were trans- 
mitted to Carranza by Sherburne G. Hopkins, 
the attorney of the Waters-Pierce Oil Com- 
pany: 

"April 30th, 1914. * * Lind, in private 
conversation with me last night, expressed 
approval course of chief in consenting to hear 
mediation proposals of the plenipotentiaries of 
Argentina, Brazil and Chile, but as to the ces- 
sation of hostilities which plenipotentiaries 
will next propose as preliminary to further 
negotiations, Lind could not see that revolu- 
tion would profit in any degree by agreeing to 
such proposals. Lind is opposed to compro- 
mise. In regard to embargo, Lind said Presi- 
dent hesitated to raise embargo at this time 
while mediation negotiations were pending, 
but added that if, meanwhile, pertrechos (mu- 
nitions of war) were exported from the United 
States to Cuba for trans-shipment to Mata- 
moros, or coast of Tamaulipas in schooners, he 
would give assurance that no obstacle would 
be placed in the way by Washington. Lind 
believes chief should immediately send person 
of his confidence to Vera Cruz." * "^ 



CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 135 

Later: "Mr. Lind I consider a very practi- 
cal man, extremely prudent and always tact- 
ful. In conversation he is disposed to be reti- 
cent, yet v^hat he says goes directly to the 
point. He has made a very careful study of 
the political situation in Mexico and I am con- 
vinced possesses a better knowledge of it than 
any other person in the service of this govern- 
ment. 

"He certainly has the complete confidence 
of President Wilson, who does not hesitate to 
communicate to him his private opinions and 
desires, but which I think he is very reticent 
to impart to Mr. Bryan, who is always dis- 
posed to take into consideration his own future 
political career in connection with every prob- 
lem or question with which he is confronted. 

"Mr. Bryan believes in peace at any price 
and would be disposed to make any conces- 
sion, whatever the cost, to avoid war, believ- 
ing, as he does, that the majority of the people 
of this country share his opinions, in which he 
is mistaken. The President entertains no such 
ideas, and there is therefore a lack of co-ordi- 
nation between the policy of the White House 
and that of the Department of State, and it is 
for this reason that Mr. Lind has been selected 
as the medium of communication between 
your confidential agent and the American gov- 
ernment." * * 



136 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 

"But in this I beg of you to remember al- 
ways that there is a person of high position at 
this capitol, who, to insure his own personal 
ends, is capable of trying to inspire discord 
among those who support you, in the hope of 
putting in your place as supreme chief of the 
revolution another person who would be more 
obedient to his desires. I am pleased to learn, 
however, that settled suggestions relating to 
this matter have not provoked much interest 
on the part of the person for whose ears they 
were intended, and it has been of great gratifi- 
cation to me to learn of the absolute loyalty of 
that person to you. At the same time I am 
convinced that President Wilson on his part is 
a firm believer in your capacity and in your 
eventual triumph." 



LETTERS. 



Hopkins to Pierce. 

April 21st, 1914. 
Henry Clay Pierce, 

New York City. 
Dear Mr. Pierce: 

Carranza continues to take good advice and 
remains discreetly silent. I think within a 
few days he will be so used to the situation 
that there will be no danger of embarrass- 
ment from that quarter. Villa and Angeles 
are with him today in conference on matter of 
general policy. I have written today to Car- 
ranza relative to oil matters, suggesting that 
steps be taken to allow business in that line 
to be freely resumed under guarantees of 
which you spoke last week. 

From what I know now I entertain no 
doubt relative to the triumph of the Constitu- 
tionalists' cause, provided, of course, that Car- 
ranza continues to stand pat. 

My friend Pani, who has arrived in Chihua- 
hua, is to be placed in charge of the railways 
of the north. 

Faithfully yours, 

S. G. HOPKINS. 



138 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 

Pierce to Hopkins. 

April 18th, 1914. 
S. G. Hopkins, 

Washington, D. C. 
Dear Captain: 

Referring to your letter of the 17th inst. 
with enclosures : Mr. Richards is in the coun- 
try this afternoon, but on Monday he will ad- 
vise you concerning the reference which you 
have kindly sent. Mr. Vasconcelos was to 
have seen me today, but he telephoned that he 
would come in on Monday. He told me the 
other day he was waiting to receive money 
from Carranza before going to Canada. The 
attorney of the Canadian parties told me yes- 
terday that Vasconcelos would be wasting his 
time to go to Canada, as their representatives 
and the parties to whom Vasconcelos should 
talk reside in New York, and consequently I 
have arranged to have the party come to my 
office Monday, and if after talking with him it 
seems best, I will have Vasconcelos meet him. 
Yours very truly, 

H. C. PIERCE. 

Pierce to Hopkins. 

New York, May 7th, 1914. 
S. G. Hopkins, 

Washington, D. C. 
Dear Captain : 

Referring to your letter of May 6th: Yes- 
terday I tried to impress upon Mr. Vasconce- 



CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 139 

los the necessity for prompt action on the part 
of his chief concerning railroad matters. 
* * * It is not necessary nor desirable to 
wait until the capture of Saltillo, San Luis 
Potosi, Tampico and Aguascalientes is ac- 
complished before undertaking the new organ- 
ization of the National Railways of Mexico. 
I have not the pleasure of Mr. Panics acquaint- 
ance, but assuming that he is well fitted for 
the work in connection with Mr. Vasconcelos, 
who I am sure understands the situation and 
requirements, I should think their appoint- 
ment by Mr. Carranza to investigate and with 
power to arrange, and their early arrival here 
most desirable. 

Yours very truly, 

H. C. PIERCE. 

Hopkins to Pierce. 

April 29th, 1914. 
Henry Clay Pierce, 

New York City. 
Dear Mr. Pierce: 

I confirm conversation on the telephone of 
today, and beg to state that reports to the 
Navy Department indicate continued fighting 
in the streets of Tampico, but nothing indi- 
cates that there has occurred any damage to 
foreign property. I note that Mr. Galbraith 



140 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 

and your other employees at Galveston are to 
return to Tampico on a Danish steamer, and 
will wait there until it is safe to land, upon the 
fall of which city they will go on to Vera Cruz 
and commence operations in the refineries at 
that place. * * jk 

I asked you to favor me with a remittance 
several days ago, and regret that I did not 
receive one this morning, I presume you must 
realize that my expenses in conducting the 
work that I have laid out for me, amount to a 
great many times my income and I have not, 
up to the present, felt like calling on Carranza 
for anything, because my prestige would be so 
much the greater in the end. I have been 
pressed with offer after offer of retainers dur- 
ing the last six weeks from various interests in 
Mexico. But up to the present time I have not 
accepted one cent from any of them, although 
I might have done so with perfect propriety. 
My sole object being to remain absolutely free 
from entanglements whatsoever, that I might 
better represent you upon the establishment of 
the new regime. I do not expect anything 
extravagant, but in laying the foundation, that 
I certainly am, for the protection of your in- 
terests, I think it is only fair that you should 
respond with promptness when I need funds, 
especially so when I am asking only what I 



CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 141 

require for expenses. I have made such ex- 
traordinary sacrifices during the past twelve 
months that I feel the necessity for protecting 
myself in some degree. I had a draft to meet 
on the 28th inst., but managed to hold it over 
until tomorrow awaiting your advice. If you 
have not already sent me a check, I trust that 
you will give the matter your immediate con- 
sideration. 

Faithfully yours, 

S. G. HOPKINS. 

Hopkins to Pierce. 

. May 6th, 1914. 
Henry Clay Pierce, 

New York City. 
Dear Mr. Pierce: 

I thank you for your remittance of the 2nd 
instant, of $500.00, and regret that you could 
not, for the moment, make it for $1,000.00, the 
amount needed. I trust, however, that within 
the next week or ten days you will be able to 
let me have the balance, since it is very impor- 
tant for me to have funds at this particular 

time. 

Faithfully yours, 

S. G. HOPKINS. 

Was oil responsible for President Wilson's 
Mexican policy? Did oil get up to the steps 



142 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 

of the White House — did it get into the White 
House? These are the questions that one nat- 
urally asks when he reads the communications 
which Sherburne G. Hopkins claims to have 
had with Mr. Lind — when he reads the Hop- 
kins-Pierce letters, taken from photographic 
copies, only a few of which I reproduce here. 
A committee of the United States Senate 
had been appointed during the latter part of 
Taft's administration to investigate the ques- 
tion: "Whether any persons, associations or 
corporations domiciled in or owing allegiance 
to the United States, have heretofore been, or 
are now engaged in fomenting, inciting, en- 
couraging or financing rebellion, insurrection 
or other flagrant disorders in Mexico." This 
committee never completed its work. It was 
forced to cease its investigation because of in- 
sidious influences under Wilson's adminis- 
tration. Senator Smith, the chairman of the 
committee, asked for more money to pay ex- 
penses. His request was refused by the Sen- 
ate, which President Wilson at that time abso- 
lutely domineered. Senator Smith informed 
President Wilson and Secretary Bryan of the 
underlying causes of the revolution, and laid 
before them the sensational facts in his pos- 
session. Neither seemed to be interested. 



CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 143 

At the time that Senator Smith gave this 
advice to the President and his Secretary, they 
were in friendly relations with the rebel or- 
ganization in Washington, D. C. The attor- 
ney for this organization was Sherburne G. 
Hopkins. In order to retain these friendly 
relations with the President and his Secre- 
tary the rebel organization employed Charles 
A. Douglas, an old-time friend of Mr. Bryan. 
Mr. Douglas remained in this employment un- 
til after the overthrow of the Mexican govern- 
ment, and held frequent conferences with the 
Secretary of State. 



PRESIDENT HUERTA. 

William Lemke 

On account of the forced and fraudulent pub- 
lic opinion against President Huerta, I hesi- 
tate to say anything in his favor, but I can 
assure you that the truth will eventually be 
made known, and that his name will be hon- 
ored and revered long after his defamers are 
forgotten and rotten dust — future history will 
write his name large. This man, in spite of 
all the obstacles that were placed in his way 
by the Waters-Pierce Oil Company and the 
Wilson administration, did all in his power to 
protect the honor, life and property of all for- 
eigners, as well as that of the Mexican people. 
He did all in his power to exterminate and sup- 
press murder, rape and robbery. In passing 
judgment on this man, remember that in gov- 
erning sixteen million people, forty per cent of 
whom are pure Indians, and forty per cent 
more of whom are half-breeds, extraordinary 
measures are sometimes required, and especial- 
ly in war times. In the saying of Lincoln, 
"Necessity knows no law." 

Huerta was the constitutional President of 
Mexico. President Madero, and Vice Presi- 
dent Pino Suarez, resigned after they had 



CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 145 

been arrested by order of the Mexican Con- 
gress. Their resignations were accepted by 
Congress, and Pedro Lascurain, Minister of 
Foreign Affairs, became President, according 
to article eighty-three of the Mexican consti- 
tution. Pedro Lascurain then appointed Gen- 
eral Huerta Minister of the Interior, with the 
approval of Madero's own former cabinet, and 
then resigned. His resignation was accepted 
by Congress, and thereupon, according to the 
Mexican constitution, General Huerta, Min- 
ister of the Interior, became the Constitutional 
President. All this was done in the interest 
of humanity and to prevent further bloodshed, 
and in order to put an end to the reign of terror 
brought on by Madero. General Huerta was 
considered the one man capable of handling the 
situation. 

President Huerta had no more to do with 
the shooting of Madero than did President 
Wilson. Madero was shot, as is generally sup- 
posed, through the influence of a father, whose 
son Madero had murdered. The mistake that 
Huerta made was that he did not have Madero 
publicly executed immediately after he was 
arrested. Our administration's press has lost 
no opportunity to parade in public the black 
veiled figure of Mrs. Madero for political ef- 
fect. No sympathy ever existed among the in- 



146 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 

telligent Mexicans for the Maderos. They re- 
membered the well filled treasury and the 
splendid credit of their country under Diaz, 
which departed with the Maderos. They 
mourned the hundreds of thousands of lives 
that have been lost during the last three years 
of strife, inaugurated by the powerful Madero 
family. They remembered the wanton 
slaughter of the little orphan children in front 
of the National Cathedral. They recalled the 
two hundred military cadets, who were shot 
down without a trial, by orders of Madero and 
his brother, Gustavo, in the National Palace. 
But let us not enumerate more of the awful 
crimes of Madero. In the words of an Amer- 
ican consul, "Let us be merciful to the dead, 
and say he was insane." 

President Wilson has been lauded for keep- 
ing us out of war. Nothing is further from 
the truth. Every act of his has brought us 
closer to war, and the end is not yet. Let us 
be fair. We are not now at war with Mexico, 
because General Huerta realized that the 
struggle would be useless, and did not resist 
when Wilson landed the marines at Vera Cruz. 
To Huerta, not to Wilson, belongs the credit. 
Huerta does not profess to be a puritan, but he 
is honest and does not parade in public for 
something that he is not. He has been called 



CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 147 

a usurper by our President, and has been 
maligned and defamed by the subsidized oil 
press, but that is to his credit. Sometimes an 
honest man is known by the enemies he has 
made. 



1^ 



PRESIDENT DIAZ'S RESIGNATION. 

Sir: The Mexican people, who generously- 
covered me with honors, who proclaimed me 
as their leader during the international war, 
who patriotically assisted me in all works un- 
dertaken to develop the industry and the com- 
merce of the republic, establish its credit, gain 
for it the respect of the world and obtain for 
it an honorable position in the concert of na- 
tions; that same people, sir, has revolted in 
armed military bands, stating that my pres- 
ence in the exercise of the supreme executive 
power is the cause of this insurrection. 

I do not know of any fact imputable to me 
which could have caused this social phenom- 
enon, but permitting, though not admitting, 
that I may be unwittingly culpable, such a pos- 
sibility makes me the least able to reason out 
and decide my own culpability. Therefore, 
respecting as I have always respected the will 
of the people, and in accordance with Article 
82 of the Federal Constitution, I come before 
the supreme representatives of the nation in 
order to resign unreservedly the office of Con- 
stitutional President of the Republic, with 
which the national vote honored me, which I 



CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 149 

do with all the more reason since in order to 
continue in office it would be necessary to shed 
Mexican blood, endangering the credit of the 
country, dissipating its wealth, exhausting its 
resources, and exposing its policy to interna- 
tional complications. 

I hope, gentlemen, that when the passions 
which are inherent to all revolutions have been 
calmed, a more conscientious and justified 
study will bring out in the national mind a cor- 
rect acknowledgment, which will allow me to 
die, carrying engraved in my soul a just im- 
pression of the estimation of my life, which 
throughout I have devoted and will devote to 
my countrymen. 

With all respect, 

PORFIRIO DIAZ. 



ADDRESS BEFORE MEXICAN 
CONGRESS. 

By President Huerta. 

I am not going to call you deputies and sena- 
tors any more, but simply fellow citizens, 
Mexicans; we are face to face with a mission 
entrusted to us, with the eyes of the nation, 
nay of all humanity, upon us, and — let us admit 
it as well now as later — we are in the presence 
of God. 

I am a Liberal, but even so I am deeply re- 
ligious, and I call upon God to give us strength 
in the present situation. Circumstances have 
placed me at the helm, but I assure you that it 
will be the proudest moment of my life when I 
shall turn that responsibility over to the man 
elected by the Mexican people, and then take 
up the sword again as a good soldier for the 
honor of my country. 

We are all sons of the people, sons of a great 
people, and one that may yet be greater in the 
future. As the American statesman, Roose- 
velt, has said, this is not a Caucasian race. I 
am not a Caucasian, I am an Indian; but Roose- 
velt was right when he said that this nation has 



CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 151 

produced great men and would some day be 
one of the greatest nations in the world. My 
boys, I call on you to put aside all personal am- 
bitions and grievances to work for the pacifica- 
tion of the country, and amid the dangers be- 
setting the ship of state I swear to you on my 
honor as a man and soldier that there is to be 
peace in this land even if bought at the cost of 
my life. 



WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN. 

William Lemke 

The rise and fall of William Jennings Bryan 
is unique in American history. A generation 
ago, Mr. Bryan conceived a cause — "a cause 
as holy as the cause of liberty — the cause of 
humanity." He lost himself in this cause, and 
thrice narrowly escaped being President. "The 
humblest citizen in all the land when clad in 
armour of a righteous cause is stronger than 
all the hosts of error" — than all the hosts of 
the Waters-Pierce Oil Company with their 
tainted and entrenched wealth and subsidized 
press. Unfortunately for Mr. Bryan, unfortu- 
nately for the American people, and unfortu- 
nately for that cause — the cause of humanity, 
Mr. Bryan became Secretary of State under 
"the Wilson Administration. Where, sur- 
rounded by entrenched wealth and insidious 
influences he attempted to appropriate that 
cause — the cause of humanity — for his own 
political aggrandizement and personal gain, 
and Bryan's star began to descend. 

What a miserable figure he has been as Sec- 
retary of State. He not only brought dishonor 
to himself and disgrace to his party, but 
shamed the nation by his amateurish and boor- 



CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 153 

ish performance. Bryan, the commoner, no 
longer was able to live on twelve thousand a 
year. He forgot that he was but the servant of 
the people, left his post of duty, and while 
American men were being murdered, and 
American women and children ravished in 
Mexico, he peddled the prestige of the high 
office of Secretary of State about on the 
Chautauqua platform at so much per day. As 
Champ Clark, an admirer of the former, but 
not of the latter day Bryan, has justly said: 
"It seems to me to be dishonest for a person 
to receive money from the government for per- 
forming his official duties, and then leave his 
post of duty to make money on the lecture 
platform." 

To cover up the administration's Mexican 
blunders, William Jennings Bryan deliberately, 
for political purposes, concealed the blood of 
the five hundred American citizens who were 
murdered and tortured to death by Villa and 
his kind — men, women and children, who had 
gone to Mexico to make their homes there 
upon the advice that Mr. Bryan publicly gave 
just a few short years ago. The concealing of 
the murder of these our fellow men, c|Ln never 
be justified. It is the first time in the history 
of nations that those in charge of a govern- 
ment — charged with the sacred duty of pro- 



154 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 

tecting its subjects, deliberately concealed the 
murder of its people in a foreign land, thus 
compounding an international felony. 

Forced to defend his position, Mr. Bryan 
raised his voice and joined the chorus of the 
Waters-Pierce Oil Company and its subsid- 
ized press, and shouted exploiters into the face 
of the unhappy Americans, who were unfor- 
tunate enough to have taken his advice to go 
into Mexico and find a home. Oh, what a 
change of the mighty Bryan, what a disap- 
pointment to the cause of humanity! "The 
hardy pioneers, who *had' braved all the dan- 
gers of the wilderness, who *had' made the 
desert to blossom as the rose — the pioneers 
away 'down there in Mexico,* who reared their 
children near to nature's heart, where they 
*could' mingle their voices with the voices of 
the birds, — 'down' there where they 'had' 
erected schoolhouses for the education of their 
* young, churches where they praised their 
creator, cemeteries where rest the ashes of 
their dead" — murdered with the arms and am- 
munition furnished by the Wilson administra- 
tion to Villa and his followers. "These people 
we say are as deserving of the consideration 
of our 'nation' as any people in this country. 
It is for these that we speak. We do not come 
as aggressors. Our war is not a war of con- 



CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 155 

quest ; we are fighting in defense of our homes, 
our families and posterity. We have pe- 
titioned, and our petitions have been scorned; 
we have entreated, and our entreaties have 
been disregarded; we have begged, and *y^u, 
Mr. Bryan* have mocked when our calamity 
came. We beg no longer; we entreat no more; 
we petition no more. We defy 'you.' " We, 
the seventy-five thousand Americans, who 
have been wronged by you, will expose you. 
We will drag this whole Mexican scandal into 
the light of day. 

Former President Cleveland said: "The ad- 
ministration s,hould act behind glass doors." 
Following this suggestion, Mr. Bryan repeat- 
edly demanded that President Taft make pub- 
lic the recommendations he had received to 
appoint Mr. White Chief Justice. Recently 
two thousand Americans in Mexico City sent 
a protest to Secretary Bryan, demanding that 
he make it public. Bryan refused, stating 
"that the matter was of such a character that 
he did not think the Department of State could 
take the responsibility of giving it publicity." 
Can Mr. Bryan answer why he felt it his duty 
to keep from the American public the fact that 
their citizens were being murdered in Mexico? 
The only reason he can give is that he con- 
sidered the political welfare of President Wil- 



156 CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 

son and himself of greater moment than the 
lives of thousands of our citizens. He and the 
President actually rendered the nation instru- 
mental in ruining and destroying their fellow- 
men. The author of "The Prince of Peace" 
feared the righteous wrath and the just indig- 
nation of the American people if they ever ob- 
tained the facts. 

Under fire, Mr. Bryan resigned and deserted 
his chief, after he had helped him to bring this 
nation to the very verge of war. No one ad- 
mires the particular kind of courage it takes 
to run rather than to stand by your guns, yet 
Mr. Bryan's resignation meets with universal 
approval. The public long ago realized that as 
Secretary of State he was a detriment to the 
nation. 

As Macaulay said of King Charles the First, 
so the friends of Mr. Bryan, like the friends of 
other wrongdoers against whom overwhelm- 
ing evidence is produced, decline all contro- 
versy about the facts, and content themselves 
with calling testimony to character. He has 
so many private virtues. He is a believer in 
peace at any price. Ample apologies for con- 
cealing the persecution and murder of Amer- 
ican citizens in Mexico. 

The man who stands idly by and sees his 
neighbor murdered and mutilated and shouts 



CRIMES AGAINST MEXICO 157 

peace is in a moral sense an accomplice of the 
crime. There is no peace while those of our 
own flesh and blood are being destroyed. We 
have had enough of this ignorance. If Mr. 
Bryan had lived in 1776, he would have as- 
sailed Patrick Henry for his speech on the 
"Resistance to Oppression.'' He would have 
been willing, for the sake of harmony, to sub- 
mit to taxation without representation. He 
would have insisted upon peace at any price. 
He would have been a Tory. He lacks the 
courage to stand for the eternal right, and to 
fight for it if necessary. Let us answer him 
by saying: ''You shall not press down upon 
the brow of 'American women and children' 
this crown of 'disgrace.' You shall not crucify 
'American women and children upon the Villa 
cross of shame.' " 



